Listening to new voices in school health

Knowledge Translation workshops empower students and parents as partners in school health.

Dr. Donna Murnaghan

  • Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University Prince Edward Island
  • Board Member, Health PEI

Associates and partners

Issue

Healthy living begins in youth and childhood. When positive habits for eating, physical activity and maintaining self-esteem are established early-on, lifetime health outcomes can be improved and the risk of chronic disease reduced.

Health professionals, educators and parents realize that schools have an important role to play in encouraging young people to adopt healthy lifestyles. 

In Prince Edward Island, schools, parent organizations and other community groups have proven to be keen partners and participants in the Youth Excel-Coalitions Linking Action and Science for Prevention (CLASP) project. Funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC), these knowledge exchange studies on youth health have provided census-level data on youth health in the province. The project survey achieved an extraordinary 90 per cent participation rate. 

Given this enthusiasm, University of PEI researcher, Dr. Donna Murnaghan, and her team at the Comprehensive School Health Research Group, wanted to keep this remarkable community partnership rolling with a look at two key knowledge gaps in the school health mix: the knowledge levels and perceptions of students and parents.

“We wanted to understand what students know about their health, and about how to get that information and take action,” she says. “Similarly, parents play a critical role in the health and wellbeing of children. We wanted to know how to get them engaged.”

Research

A Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Dissemination grant allowed Dr. Murnaghan and her team to host two workshops that generated a two-way knowledge exchange on school and student health with students and parents.

At the one-day student workshop, 28 youth from grades 7 to 12 considered what it means to be healthy and what is being done to help them be healthy. They also brainstormed on how family and friends, school, community and society could help youth be healthier, and students themselves could influence the broader community in creating healthier environments.

The level of engagement from students surpassed expectations, providing direct feedback for school and public health officials on how well their school-based programming is working and how they can achieve better results.

“The ideas students had were phenomenal,” says Dr. Murnaghan. “Sometimes we underestimate the understanding that youth have. They were saying, ‘you can engage us quite easily if you just give us a chance’.”

The students had an abundance of ideas for ways that all levels—individual, school, family, community and society—could contribute to healthier living. For example, families could have more home cooked meals. Schools could promote healthier foods and support students in planning and leading physical activities. Communities could build fitness facilities and create spaces for family activities. Governments could remove taxes on healthy foods.

Parents identified mental wellness and nutrition as foundations to healthy living. They emphasized the importance of school and parents being on the same page, reinforcing behaviors and activities and working together to the benefit of children. They want to be informed and engaged in their children’s school lives.

“Youth today are living in stressful environments and, they are wanting parents and others in mentorship roles to help them set healthy boundaries,” says Dr. Murnaghan.

Results

The next step is intervention—with researchers working with students, schools and parents on activities that will make a difference and then measuring the impact of these interventions on lifestyles and health in the future.

“If we can open dialogues with students, parents, schools and the community, then we would be treating the health of our youth as a community issue,” says Murnaghan. “The knowledge exchange workshops really showed how when people feel their voices can make a difference, they can become willing partners in social change.”

Dr. Murnaghan and her team are part of a broader network of school health and population health researchers that share information from coast to coast.

“An enormous part of my work is in opportunities to link and collaborate with partners in all parts of Canada,” says Murnaghan. “Funding through local and national organizations such as CIHR, CLASP and CPAC are instrumental to catalyzing and allowing us to build stronger, more rigorous and informed research.”

Because of its high uptake and study participation rates, PEI has provided a unique opportunity to learn what works with school health activities and knowledge translation aimed at youth and student populations.

This research has the potential to have a broad impact across Canada and internationally.