Game on Philly: Engaging Underserved Middle School Youth in Out-of- School Time Sports and Nutrition Education

Temple University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diet; Exercise

Treatments: Behavioral: Game on Philly: Engaging Underserved Middle School Youth in Out-of- School Time Sports and Nutrition Education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT04975529

26406

Details and patient eligibility

About

Game on Philly is a multi-component out-of-school time intervention delivered by trained sport-based youth development coaches and health navigators using evidenced-based programming. The program evaluation assesses the impact of this minimal-risk intervention to reduce the prevalence of obesity-related health disparities in racial and ethnic minority middle school youth. The program is a virtual sport-based youth development program, supplemented with nutrition education. The program was modified due to Covid-19 and is entirely virtual. Using a quasi-experimental design, six schools are assigned to the intervention arm and six schools are assigned to the comparison arm. Participants in intervention schools receive access to daily, online after school programming, with live sessions with sports providers (via Zoom), weekly team meetings with a health coach (via Zoom), text-messages via the Remind app, and the monthly delivery of Activity Kits directly to their homes for six months. Comparison school participants receive access to the Game on Philly app with workout and sports content and receive one activity kit delivery at the start of the program. Parent-child dyads recruited from each school complete surveys at baseline and at the end of the 6-month program (follow-up). It is hypothesized that youth participating in the intervention will experience significantly greater increases in physical activity at the end of the 6-month intervention compared to youth participating in the comparison arm (primary outcome). Secondary outcomes will examine changes in dietary intake, self-efficacy for physical activity and positive youth development.

Enrollment: 96 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 9 to 15 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria (Parents) :

• 18 years of age or older
• Parent or legal guardian of the enrolled child
• Can read, write and speak in English

Inclusion Criteria (Child):

• Interested in and able to participate in the program for 6-months
• Can read, write and speak in English
• Are in 6th, 7th or 8th grade at a participating school

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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96 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Arm

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in intervention schools received access to daily, online after school programming, including live sessions with sports providers (via Zoom; rotating to provide exposure to multiple sports over the course of the intervention), weekly team meetings with a health coach (via Zoom), text-messages via the Remind app, and monthly delivery of Activity Kits with sports equipment, activity books, fresh produce, and incentives directly to their homes over 6-months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Game on Philly: Engaging Underserved Middle School Youth in Out-of- School Time Sports and Nutrition Education

Comparison Arm

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in comparison schools received access to the Game on Philly app with workout and sports content that could be used asynchronously, and received one activity kit delivery with sports equipment and a self-guided activity book at the start of the program.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Game on Philly: Engaging Underserved Middle School Youth in Out-of- School Time Sports and Nutrition Education