Wellness School Assessment Tool Version 3.0: An Updated Quantitative Measure of Written School Wellness Policies.

Marlene B Schwartz,Jamie F Chriqui,Elizabeth Piekarz-Porter,Margaret A Read

doi:10.5888/pcd17.190373

Abstract

Schools play an important role in promoting student wellness. As directed by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, the US Department of Agriculture updated the requirements for written school wellness policies in 2016. The WellSAT (Wellness School Assessment Tool) is an online tool that provides a quantitative score for wellness policy comprehensiveness and strength. The WellSAT has been updated 3 times over the past decade to remain current with federal law and best practices. In this article, we describe the process of updating to WellSAT 3.0. The steps included: reviewing the language of each item linked to a federal provision; adding and deleting items based on frequencies from the National Wellness Policy Study and the empirical support for specific policies; gathering feedback from a survey of experts (N = 77) about best practices and measure usability; and establishing intercoder reliability in a national sample (N = 50) of policies. We conclude with recommendations and guidance for the use of WellSAT 3.0.

Highlights

Over the past 15 years, the role of schools in promoting wellness has been in the spotlight [1,2,3]
As directed by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, the US Department of Agriculture updated the requirements for written school wellness policies in 2016
The WellSAT (Wellness School Assessment Tool) is an online tool that provides a quantitative score for wellness policy comprehensiveness and strength

Summary

Background

Over the past 15 years, the role of schools in promoting wellness has been in the spotlight [1,2,3]. Our final step was to use the NWPS database of policies collected in the 2014–2015 school year [15] to draw a national sample of 72 school district policies that had been recently updated From this sample, 50 school districts were chosen if their policy had one or more indicators of incorporating recent USDA rules: 1) Smart Snacks appeared within the text of the policy, 2) water availability at lunch appeared within the text, or 3) the policy achieved high comprehensiveness scores. The HHFKA requires many of these practices, so WellSAT 3.0 items assess compliance with federal regulations This measure promotes further progress, such as extending strong nutrition standards to food sold or served after the school day

Limitations

Findings

15. Research products