Children's Cooperation Denmark: a 3-year System Dynamics Trial

Summary

Lack of physical activity (PA) and sedentary lifestyle in Danish children is a major challenge. New strategies are needed to combat this development. Early awareness is important, as PA behaviour in childhood often is manifested across adolescence and into adulthood. The three-year Child-COOP trial aims to explore if a participatory system dynamics approach can promote (increase and sustain) healthy PA behaviour in schoolchildren aged 6-12 years through changes at the local system level. The five Danish municipalities will each participate with an intervention community and a comparison community. First, local health profiles of children will be collected and used to engage key leaders and stakeholders from intervention communities and municipal administrations in participatory processes. These will be used to develop a systems map of drivers of PA behaviour in schoolchildren aged 6-12 years in the local communities. Second, based on the systems map, stakeholders from the civic and private sectors will be involved in developing and implementing actions to promote healthy PA behaviour through system changes. The trial will be evaluated in a pre-post design to compare intervention effects between the communities and identify outcomes at individual level and systems level. A process evaluation will be made to map the activities in a final systems program theory on "what works for whom under what circumstances". Results will be used in future recommendations and to assess the potential for upscaling to national level. Child-COOP will be based on a collaboration between the five Danish municipalities, the Steno Diabetes Centres in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Zealand, Aarhus University and Deakin University, Australia. Centre for Health Promotion in Practice, Local Government Denmark (KL) and the Danish Healthy Cities Network (Sund By Netværket) will contribute with feedback on project progress and dissemination of project results.

Conditions

• Child Health
• Child Behavior
• Physical Inactivity
• Child Obesity

Interventions

OTHER

Participatory system dynamics approach

First, local health profiles of children will be collected and used to engage key leaders and stakeholders from intervention communities and municipal administrations in participatory processes. These will be used to develop a systems map of drivers of PA behaviour in schoolchildren aged 6-12 years in the local communities. Second, based on the systems map, stakeholders from the civic and private sectors will be involved in developing and implementing actions to promote healthy PA behaviour through system changes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Aarhus

  collaborator OTHER

• Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen

  collaborator OTHER

• Steno Diabetes Center Sjaelland

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Deakin University

  collaborator OTHER

• Aarhus University Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jane Nautrup N Østergaard, PhD · Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, Aarhus University Hospital

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Years

Max Age

12 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-09-13

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2027-12-31

Countries

• Denmark

Study Locations