Promoting Mental Health, Physical Activity, and Healthy and Sustainable Dietary Behavior Among Practical Education Students in the Netherlands: Protocol for a Multiphase Participatory Research Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: While a healthy lifestyle at a young age benefits youth now and later in life, not all youth have equal access to resources and support for adopting a healthy lifestyle. Most youth health promotion programs target the general adolescent population without addressing underlying equity issues. Similarly, participatory research, a promising methodology for the development of health promotion programs and addressing health equity, leaves youth in more vulnerable positions, often underrepresented. This research addresses these gaps by focusing on participatory research for health promotion program design with youth in practical education (praktijkonderwijs). OBJECTIVE: This research has two objectives: (1) to gain insight into how to meaningfully involve youth in vulnerable positions in participatory research for health promotion by focusing on practical education students as a case study, and (2) to gain insight into possible outputs and outcomes of the developed health promotion programs. METHODS: The research in this protocol is part of the LIFTS (Healthy Lifestyle for Low-Literate Teenagers) project, which aims to promote a healthy lifestyle for practical education students using a participatory approach. The current research uses a multiphase mixed methods research design consisting of 3 studies. Regarding the first objective, we conduct a systematic literature review (study 1) and an empirical qualitative study at practical education schools (study 2). The systematic literature review examines current knowledge on empowering approaches to engage practical education students and similar youth groups as coresearchers in health promotion program design and implementation. The qualitative study explores if and how practical education students can meaningfully be engaged as coresearchers in participatory research for health promotion program design. In line with participatory research, we developed research methods in collaboration with practical education schools and relevant LIFTS stakeholders. Regarding the second objective, we will conduct a realist evaluation of the newly designed health promotion programs within LIFTS (study 3). RESULTS: On April 11, 2025, the protocol for the systematic literature review (study 1) was ready and submitted to PROSPERO. In September 2025, we finished the data collection and analysis of the empirical qualitative study (study 2) and wrote the results. The realist evaluation (study 3) is foreseen for 2026. CONCLUSIONS: This research contributes to the advancement of academic knowledge in the field of health promotion and participatory research with youth in vulnerable positions. We expect to deliver practical recommendations and lessons learned on how to actualize youth empowerment in participatory research for health promotion, which may inspire future researchers. Additionally, we seek to promote health equity in the Netherlands by contributing to the development and implementation of tailored health promotion programs for practical education students. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/84723.
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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 | 0.094 | 0.065 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.047 | 0.009 |
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".