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Title
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Work package 3: Health transformations: Deliverable 3.1: Report on school and pupil participation in the health impact assessment for work package 3
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Author
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Abstract
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| Work Package 3 (WP3) of the COOLSCHOOLS project aims to investigate the associations of school yard and surrounding green spaces with cognitive function and well-being of 10-12 year old pupils attending the 5th or 6th grade of primary schools in the Brussels Capital Region. To achieve this objective, the goal is to include (at least) 10 primary schools and approximately 300 pupils in grades 5th or 6th. In this report, we present a description of the participation of schools and pupils for WP3. We selected 199 Brussels schools paired by the amount of green within and surrounding the schools with the socio-economic (SE) background of the school. Thus, the following four categories were defined: 1) low SE background and low greenness, 2) high SE background and low greenness, 3) low SE background and high greenness, and 4) high SE background and high greenness. School SE background was determined based on indicators provided by the Flemish Government (2020) and the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (2020-2021) in Belgium. The indicators were scores (French-speaking schools) or percentage of children with school allowance (Dutch-speaking schools) per school, and were categorized in high, medium and low SE background. School greenness was defined as the tree canopy cover percentage within the school boundaries, and within a buffer of 300 meters around the school. Schools were then classified according to high, medium and low amount of greenness within and around the school. Schools classified as having low greenness, exhibited low greenness both within and around the school. Given the scarcity of schools with high greenness within and around the school, those with medium greenness within and around the school were also considered. Within this category of schools, the schools with the highest percentage of greenness within the school were selected. In total, 157 schools were contacted and 15% accepted to participate in the study (n=24). To date, the measurements of cognition and well-being of children have been finalized in 19 of the 24 schools, and the measurements in the 5 remaining schools will be finalized by the end of February/beginning of March. Regarding pupil participation, so far, 282 children in the 5th and 6th grades of 19 schools participated in the cognitive function and well-being measurements. We observe higher participation rates in schools classified as high SE schools with low greenness within and around the school . Yet the lowest participation rates are observed in schools with high SE background but higher amount of green spaces within and around the school. In conclusion, the goal of including (at least) 10 schools has been achieved. However, the low participation rate of pupils in some schools required the inclusion of a higher number of schools than initially anticipated. The goal of including approximately 300 pupils has been almost achieved. Currently, 282 children attending 19 schools participated in the measurements, and we are expecting to receive consent forms for pupils from 5 additional schools in the coming weeks. Therefore, we expect that by the end of February/beginning of March, the pupil participation will reach the goal of 300 participants. Last, although the distribution in terms of school and pupil participation is unequal across the 4 pre-defined groups of schools, the numbers per category are sufficient to provide adequate statistical power for the analyses. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Urban Europe
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2024
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Volume/pages
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6 p.
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Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
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