An environmental scan exploring health promoting school policies in Nova Scotia: A critique

My topic is related to improving the school food environment through strengthening school food policy in Ontario.  I found a study that included an environment scan looking at understanding the environment for health-promoting school policies that took place in Nova Scotia, that I think is valuable for my health promotion project as it might highlight important factors to consider.

The researchers highlight a finding that suggests that the school environment is shown to be especially impactful for health promotion activities.  They complete a comprehensive scan and review of 70 provincial level policies, and over 500 public school level policies. They outline four steps taken to complete the sca

n including:

·      Scanning school websites to identify current policies.

·      Consulting provincial level health agencies to describe policy relevance and scope.

·      Completion of cross-comparison of policies by two different reviewers.

·      Combining existing policies into an online database.

The researchers found that policies focused on safety, mental health, physical activity and nutrition were the most common.

Some critiques that came to mind when reviewing the study were the following:

·      Methodology: The researchers appeared to take a more ‘behind the scenes’ approach to exploring the existing policies, choosing to look online and reaching out to provincial policy makers.  It may have offered deeper insight had the researchers interviewed or surveyed students or teachers to assess their understanding of and use of health promoting policies.

·      Results: The authors mention that each policy was ‘lumped’ into a category that best fit its key theme for categorizing and analysis purposes.  In their discussion, however, they do acknowledge that many policies could theoretically impact multiple categories.  For example, a policy for decreasing sedentary behavior could impact upon mental health, personal development, and physical activity.  This adds some ambiguity and reduces the objectivity of the categorization.

·      Discussion: The discussion is heavy on analyzing the number of policies, and the change in number over time for each category, but little is mentioned regarding the strength, scope, or effectiveness of the policies.  As I have made an argument for in my health promotion topic, policies that are confusing, have no accountability measures, and /or are poorly understood are not effective. 

References

Graham-DeMello, A., Yusuf, J., Kay-Arora, M., Hancock Friesen, C. L., & Kirk, S. F. L. (2021). Understanding the Environment for Health-Promoting Schools Policies in Nova Scotia: A Comprehensive Scan at the Provincial and Regional School Level. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(7), 3411. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073411