Success Story - Evaluation and Assessment Tool
January 2005
Describe the related Annual Action Plan activity
Type relevant Action Plan title and Activity number (Schools, 4)
Clark County School Food Choices and Physical Education Practice Questionnaires: Assessment and Community Engagement Tool
Author & Community
Maria Maribona, Evaluation and Assessment Coordinator
Steps to a Healthier Clark County
Assessment and Research Unit, Clark County Health Department
Steps cost, or resources used
School contracts: $35,907.48
Staff: $8,999.00
In-kind, or community contribution
$0
Partners
Questionnaires completed by school physical education and health teachers, intervention specialists, school nurses, nutrition staff, and administrators across Clark County school districts from July to September 2004.
Disease and/or Risk factor
Obesity & nutrition
Date
11/04/04
1.0 Description:
Public Health Problem: describe the problem, such as rate of diabetes, asthma, etc. Program Example: describe how your program addressed this problem. Describe steps taken to achieve the activity.
The purpose of the surveys was to assess existing school nutrition and physical activity practices while engaging a core set of local grass-root school staff around the STEPS objectives.
- Steps to a Healthier Clark County completed two baseline assessment school questionnaires: the School Food Choices Questionnaire and the Physical Education Practices Questionnaire.
- The data collection component was not perfect. For example, at the schools’ request the questionnaires were completed during the summer due to perceived teacher availability. However, many teachers were not available and no one remembered that many vending machines are emptied in the summer, making vending machine inventories difficult to complete! As with any survey there are questions that we would modify for future use and double planned time allocated for analysis and report writing.
2.0 Implications and Impact of activity described: describe the impact on data, policies, etc.
The questionnaires provide baseline assessment data which is critical to measuring intervention success. We will probably not be completing the exact questionnaire at the end of our STEPS grant period, but we do plan to review school nutrition and physical-activity policies to see changes made over time.
3.0 Describe the activity as an accomplishment or success, a promising practice, or a “lesson learned,” or a demonstration of a “best practice”: Would you recommend this activity for other communities? Why?
From a community development or community partner engagement perspective the questionnaires were a definitive success in that it gave grass-root school staff a task to accomplish and purpose to come to the table: collecting data to assess the issue.
4.0 Describe how this activity relates to sustainable policy change in your community, if applicable.
A local success is that Vancouver School District used the information from the report as part of the data presented to their school board’s work session addressing nutrition and physical education policies on November 29, 2004. The other two school intervention teams will also be using the questionnaire reports as general baseline information.
