JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Early childhood is a critical time for shaping lifelong health behaviours, making early childhood education and care (ECEC) environments ideal for implementing nutrition and physical activity interventions. eHealth tools are increasingly used in ECEC environments due to their accessibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, showing promise in improving educators’ practices. Despite the potential effectiveness of these eHealth approaches, a comprehensive collection of available evidence on eHealth tools to assess and support best practices for nutrition and/or physical activity in ECECs does not currently exist.

Objective:

The primary objective of this scoping review is to map the breadth of available eHealth tools for promoting nutrition and physical activity in ECEC settings and assess their components, theoretical foundations, and effectiveness.

Methods:

This scoping review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology in line with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist. The objectives, inclusion criteria, and methods for this scoping review were specified in advance (Trial Registration: Open Science Framework XTRNZ). Eligibility criteria included: (1) early childhood educators (population); (2) eHealth (digital) technology, such as website, smartphone apps, email, and social media; and (3) measurement and intervention tools to support best practices for nutrition, physical activity, or both in ECEC settings (context). A search of five electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL Plus, ERIC, and Embase) was conducted for white literature and a search of three electronic (ProQuest, Google Scholar, targeted Google search) databases and hand searching of reference lists was conducted for grey literature reported in English or French language until May 2024. Separate data charting tools were used for white and grey literature.

Results:

The search strategy identified 3064 results for white literature, with 2653 unique citations once duplicates were removed. Full texts for 65 citations were retrieved and screened for inclusion with 30 studies eligible for data extraction and analysis. The grey literature search yielded 1054 results of which 17 were moved to full-text screening and 7 results met eligibility for data extraction and analysis. The most common study design reported was a Randomized Control Trial (16, 53%). The largest proportion of studies were conducted within the United States (11, 37%). In total, 19 eHealth tools were identified targeting nutrition (8, 42.1%), physical activity (5, 26.3%) or nutrition and physical activity (6, 31.6%) and all were web-based (19, 100%).

Conclusions:

This scoping review mapped the available eHealth tools for improving nutrition and physical activity environments in ECEC environments, highlighting a growing focus on web-based tools and the need for psychometric testing. Future research should systematically evaluate the effectiveness of these tools, particularly those targeting both nutrition and physical activity, to identify factors that drive long-term behavior change. Clinical Trial: Trial Registration: Open Science Framework XTRNZ; https://osf.io/xtrnz International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/52252