Personalized health report card may encourage some families to plan physical activities

(10.) Chomitz et al. (2003). Promoting healthy weights among elementary school children via health report chard approach. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 157, 765-772.

Target Group: Elementary school children

Program Name: unknown

Location: United States

Study Objective: To evaluate a school-based health report card on the family awareness of child’s health and plans for preventive behaviors (such as increasing physical activity).

Study Design:
- quasi-randomized trail
- 4 elementary schools in urban area; 793 families;

Intervention or Program:
- six week intervention
- three intervention groups: personalized health card intervention, a general-information intervention and a control group
- families were randomly assigned to intervention group and were then mailed intervention materials
- Mailed materials varied by intervention group:
1) Personalized health report card intervention: child’s weight, height, weight status, fitness test result with interpretive information, referral of children outside healthy weight range to a primary care provider or school nurse
2) General information intervention (2-1-5): information and recommendations on <2 hours of television, 1 hour of physical activity and 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day
3) Control group: no mailed materials

Impact on Physical Activity:
- no effect of the intervention shown for the general information intervention on health behaviors
- among parents who had overweight children, those who received personalized health card were significantly more likely than control or general information group to plan for physical activities
- among overweight children, the personalized health card intervention group was associated with increased parental awareness of their child’s weight status when compared to other groups; 91% of parents of children outside healthy weight range requested annual weight and health information on their child