Systematic review examining the evidence for impact of school policies on physical activity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Epidemiological evidence has demonstrated that physical activity can have substantive health benefits for children and young people. The 'Policy Evaluation Network' is a multi-disciplinary research network across 7 European countries and New Zealand aimed at building capacity and evaluating the level of impact of policy interventions for promoting healthy lifestyles. The Toronto Charter identified 'whole-of-school' programmes as one of seven key investments for promotion of PA. This paper presents results of a SLR, designed to assess the level of evidence for policies within the school setting that contribute directly or indirectly to increasing PA. Methods Researchers searched six online databases for scientific literature regarding PA policy interventions in the school setting using key concepts of policy, school, PA and evaluation. Risk of bias will be assessed with tools appropriate to the design of the studies considered. Evidence of actual or potential positive PA outcomes arising directly or indirectly from policy actions will be catalogued. Results Preliminary searches identified 2327 unique scientific articles. 1938 (83.3%) were excluded on first reading and 189 (8.8%) were included for full text analysis. Initial findings suggest that organisational policies, for example avoiding overcrowding in playgrounds during school breaks, may be a promising policy action. Detailed analysis revealing other potential policy actions supported by evidence will be presented (SLR in progress). Conclusions Preliminary findings suggest that few studies link policy actions in the school setting to PA outcomes. However, studies that have investigated the effects of changes to the school environment on PA levels may provide evidence for policy actions. Preliminary recommendations include strengthening the evidence base for school-based PA policy by supporting studies into the effects of particular policy or legislative changes on PA outcomes. Key messages School physical activity policies are an underappreciated public health intervention. More studies should link policy changes to physical activity outcomes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.027 | 0.147 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.010 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.017 | 0.017 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".