JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Few children achieve the recommended daily levels of physical activity. Active school transportation (AST) offers a valuable opportunity to increase children's physical activity. Initiatives promoting AST in early childhood are important and have the potential to reverse the decline in physical activity.

Objective:

This study protocol outlines an age-cohort design to evaluate the effectiveness of the Sustainable Innovation for Children Transporting Actively (SICTA) intervention on children’s AST.

Methods:

SICTA is a four-week school-based intervention that incorporates gamification elements to enhance motivation and aims to increase AST in children. The intervention involves children and their parents as gatekeepers as well as teachers delivering the intervention. All children, parents and teachers in all schools, grade 4-6 in one municipality in the southern part of Sweden, will be invited to participate in the evaluation. Following the age cohort design, students at baseline (late fall 2024) will be compared with same-aged students from the same schools one year later at follow up (late fall 2025) after receiving the intervention (late fall 2025). With the aid of questionnaires at baseline and follow-up, this study will examine the effects of the intervention on children’s levels of AST. Children’s independent mobility and several mediators related to AST in both children and parents, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Transtheoretical Model of Change, and Self-Determination Theory, will also be examined. The intervention will also be evaluated from a sustainable perspective by using the sustainable value equation. At follow-up, data collection will include a questionnaire for teachers assessing the feasibility of the intervention.

Results:

Follow-up data collection is ongoing following completion of the intervention in late fall 2025. Results will be reported according to the predefined outcomes, including changes in AST, children’s independent mobility, psychosocial determinants among children and parents, and sustainability outcomes, as well as feasibility.

Conclusions:

The findings are expected to provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the SICTA intervention, facilitating knowledge dissemination among end-users and policymakers. Clinical Trial: The study has been registered in the Swedish national research database Researchweb.org by 2024-10-25 with the project number: 283668.