Innovative approaches to optimise the translation of healthy eating and physical activity...

Innovative approaches to optimise the translation of healthy eating and physical activity interventions in childcare centres and schools

Associate Professor Sze Lin Yoong, Swinburne University of Technology

2022 Future Leader Fellowship - Level 1 (Honorary)

Years funded: 2023-2026

Interventions to improve child nutrition and physical activity are the cornerstone of many health agencies' strategies to reduce preventable deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD). As these risk factors persist from childhood into adulthood, childcare centres and schools are viewed internationally as critical to CVD prevention efforts. Despite the availability of many effective childcare and school-based interventions, my research shows they are suboptimally implemented and as such fail to deliver on their intended health benefits.

My research program seeks to address this longstanding challenge by moving health promotion efforts from ineffective, static methods to adaptive and iterative approaches. It will advance the field by being the first to describe the dynamic barriers to implementation among childcare centres and schools (Stream 1); and by developing and testing adaptive strategies to improve implementation of outdoor free play policies in childcare centres and adoption of a m-health lunchbox program in primary schools (Stream 2).