Operational Implementation of the Healthy Communities Study How Communities Shape Children’s Health

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Issue Date
2016-10-01Author
John, Lisa V.
Gregoriou, Maria
Pate, Russell R.
Fawcett, Stephen B.
Crawford, Patrica B.
Strauss, Warren
Frongillo, Edward A.
Ritchie, Lorrene D.
Loria, Catherine M.
Kelley, Melinda
Fishbein, Howard
Arteaga, S. Sonia
Publisher
Elsevier Masson
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, author accepted manuscript
Rights
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License 3.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US), which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
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The Healthy Communities Study (HCS) is examining how characteristics of community programs and policies targeting childhood obesity are related to childhood diet, physical activity, and obesity outcomes. The study involves selected districts and public schools in 130 communities; families recruited through schools; and data collected at the community, school, household, and child levels. Data collection took place in two waves—Wave 1 in Spring 2012 and Wave 2 from 2013 to 2015—with analysis to be completed by August 2016. This paper describes operational elements of the HCS, including recruitment activities, field operations, training of data collectors, human subjects protection, and quality assurance and quality control procedures. Experienced trainers oversaw and conducted all training, including training of: (1) district and school recruitment staff; (2) telephone interviewers for household screening and recruitment; (3) field data collectors for conducting household data collection; and (4) community liaisons for conducting key informant interviews, document abstraction, and community observations. The study team developed quality assurance and quality control procedures that were implemented for all aspects of the study. Planning and operationalizing a study of this complexity and magnitude, with multiple functional teams, required frequent communication and strong collaboration among all study partners to ensure timely and effective decision making.
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Citation
John, Lisa V., Maria Gregoriou, Russell R. Pate, Stephen B. Fawcett, Patricia B. Crawford, Warren J. Strauss, Edward A. Frongillo, Lorrene D. Ritchie, Catherine M. Loria, Melinda Kelley, Howard A. Fishbein, and S. Sonia Arteaga. "Operational Implementation of the Healthy Communities Study." American Journal of Preventive Medicine 49.4 (2015): 631-35.
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