Abstract
BackgroundIn Ontario Canada, the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) is a program intended to reduce the prevalence and prevent childhood overweight and obesity through community-based initiatives to improve health behaviours. Guided by the RE-AIM framework and Durlak and DuPre’s Ecological Framework for Understanding Effective Implementation, the evaluation focused on two objectives: 1) to describe the organization of the program at the community level; and, 2) to identify opportunities for improvement through an early assessment of factors contributing to implementation.MethodsParticipants (n = 320) – members of the HKCC local steering committee, including the local project manager – completed a cross-sectional survey using SurveyMonkey and descriptive statistics were calculated. A sample (20%) of qualitative open-ended responses was thematically analyzed.ResultsResults indicated strong respondent agreement that the HKCC enhanced individual knowledge of access to health-promoting programs (88.3%) and messaging regarding healthy behaviours for healthy kids, with less for its effectiveness in reducing weight (53.1%). There was a high-level of adherence to HKCC social marketing messages and overall program structure, with few Local Project Manager reports of adaptations to theme one (9.2%) and theme two messages (15.4%). Fewer Local Project Managers (50%) reported the existence of private partnerships. While most respondents agreed they had the appropriate information to complete mandatory reporting, the usefulness of the HKCC online networking platform was in question (only 47% of Local Project Managers agreed that it was useful). Results reveal sufficient funding from the province to support program implementation, with a moderate level of local political commitment (63% of respondents).ConclusionsResults indicate that the HKCC was considered beneficial for enhancing access to health promoting programs, could be feasibly implemented with adherence to centrally-developed social marketing messages, and was amendable to local adaptation. Despite this, few private partnerships were reported. Going forward, there is opportunity to further evaluate factors contributing to HKCC program implementation, particularly as it relates to buy-in from intervention providers, and strategies for forming private sector partnerships to support long-term program sustainability.
Highlights
In Ontario Canada, the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) is a program intended to reduce the prevalence and prevent childhood overweight and obesity through community-based initiatives to improve health behaviours
Guided by Durlak and DuPre’s Ecological Framework for Understanding Effective Implementation [21], and considering the core components of the EPODE logic model, our evaluation focused on two objectives: 1) to describe the organization of the program at the community level; and, 2) to identify opportunities for improvement through an early assessment of factors contributing to implementation [9]
Since the survey was conducted one-year after program launch, and 2 years after funding applications were submitted, communities may have hired more than one Local Project Manager over this time period or had multiple individuals fulfilling these responsibilities
Summary
In Ontario Canada, the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) is a program intended to reduce the prevalence and prevent childhood overweight and obesity through community-based initiatives to improve health behaviours. Among children in 2017, 27.9% of 5–17 year olds are classified as overweight or obese, and obesity in childhood has been shown to track into adulthood, worsening in most individuals over time [2]. In response to rising rates of overweight and obesity and related chronic diseases, community-based interventions have been designed to modify the risk factors associated with their development [6, 7]. With the community as a geographical setting, these interventions focus on changing the context for health behaviours among individuals in order to reduce the populationlevel risk of disease [8]
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