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Prevalence and Relationships among Physical Activity Policy, Environment, and Practices in Licensed Childcare Centers
Jennifer McConnell-Nzunga1,2, Louise C Mâsse3,4, E Jean Buckler3
1Child Health BC, 4088 Cambie St #305, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2X8, Canada.
Insights
Childcare policies promoting physical activity (PA) were assessed before British Columbia's Active Play (AP) standard. Manager reports generally align with staff reports, suggesting managers can effectively inform policy evaluation.
Area of Science:
- Child Health and Development
- Public Health Policy
- Early Childhood Education
Background:
- Physical activity (PA) is crucial for early childhood health and development.
- Childcare settings are vital for promoting physically active play.
- Evaluating policy impact in real-world settings presents pragmatic challenges.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the impact of British Columbia's provincial Active Play (AP) standard on childcare.
- To explore discrepancies in reported policies, practices, and environment between childcare managers and staff.
- To determine the feasibility of using manager data for policy evaluation.
Main Methods:
- Surveys were distributed to 625 BC childcare centers prior to AP standard enactment.
- Data collected from a full sample (n=1037) and a paired manager-staff subsample (n=261 centers).
- Analysis focused on agreement in reported PA and fundamental movement skill policies and practices.
Main Results:
- Manager and staff data showed similar trends in policy prevalence and relationships for active and outdoor play.
- Modest agreement and suboptimal intraclass correlations were observed between matched manager and staff data.
- Manager-reported PA policies ranged from 47% (screen-time limits) to 77% (fundamental movement skills).
- Indoor and outdoor space emerged as key factors influencing AP standard adherence.
Conclusions:
- Manager data may adequately represent childcare provider policies and practices for AP standard evaluation, despite some limitations.
- Reliance on manager reports is a feasible approach when sampling all staff is impractical.
- Indoor/outdoor space is a significant environmental factor for active play in childcare.
Abstract:
Physical activity (PA) is critical to early childhood health and development, and childcare is a key setting for establishing physically active play. In British Columbia (BC), a provincial standard for active play in childcare was enacted, identified here as the Active Play (AP) standard. Pragmatic constraints limit real-world data collection for evaluating policy impact. We explored whether information about policies, practices, and the environment varied when it was collected from managers or staff. Surveys were distributed to BC childcare centers before AP standard enactment to ascertain current PA and fundamental movement skill policies and practices. The full sample (n = 1037 from 625 facilities) and a subsample of paired managers and staff (n = 261 centers) were used to explore agreement across managers and staff in reported prevalence and relationships among indicators. The policy prevalence and relationships for active play and outdoor play variables were relatively similar for manager and staff data, although the matched data had modest agreement and less than optimal intraclass correlations. The prevalence of manager-reported PA policies ranged from 47% for screen-time limits to 77% for fundamental movement skill activities. The manager and staff data highlighted indoor and outdoor space as a primary factor in AP standard adherence. With reliance on sampling staff unfeasible, it appears that the manager data may adequately describe the policies and practices of childcare providers with some notable issues.
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