Project Daire: Derry/Londonderry as the Nexus City for Food, Education, Trust and Health

Queen's University Belfast

Status: Completed

Conditions: Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice

Treatments: Behavioral: Nourish; Behavioral: Engage

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04277312

RD1014267 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

038_1819

Details and patient eligibility

About

Project Daire is a randomised-controlled factorial design trial working in partnership with primary schools and local food producers evaluating two interventions designed to improve primary school children's knowledge of and interest in food and where it comes from, with the ultimate aim of driving improvement in health, well-being and educational status.

Full description

Project Daire is a randomised-controlled factorial design trial working in partnership with primary schools and local food producers evaluating two interventions designed to improve primary school children's knowledge of and interest in food and where it comes from, with the ultimate aim of driving improvement in health, well-being and educational status. Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils will be recruited from 15 primary schools in the North West of Northern Ireland and will be randomised to one of four intervention arms: i) 'Engage', ii) 'Nourish', iii) 'Engage' and 'Nourish' and iv) Delayed of duration up to 6 months. Study outcomes include food knowledge, attitudes, trust, diet, behaviour, health and wellbeing and will be collected at baseline and six months.

Enrollment: 1,080 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 11 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Mainstream primary schools willing to be randomly assigned to an intervention,
• Mainstream primary schools willing to engage with the intervention and implement it with their pupils,
• Mainstream primary schools willing to facilitate pre and post-test data collection in their setting,
• Mainstream primary schools within the North West region of Northern Ireland.
• Pupils in Primary 3 (Key Stage 1) and Primary 7 (Key Stage 2) of participating schools were eligible to take part.

Exclusion criteria

• Secondary schools
• Non-mainstream schools
• Schools not in the North West region of Northern Ireland

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,080 participants in 4 patient groups

Engage

Experimental group

Description:

The Engage intervention was developed with input from primary school teachers and includes a range of age-appropriate educational activities related to food. Activities include videos, lesson plans, worksheets, games, talks/visits from experts, visits to industrial partners and other local food-related centres of interest and practical activities such as experiments. All 'Engage' material is mapped to the Northern Ireland School Curriculum. The 'Engage' intervention is structured into three broad topics: Farm to Fork; Pleasure on a Plate and Food Futures. Engage resources were provided to schools electronically and in hard copy and teachers delivered most of the content, with the exception of several sessions which were delivered by visiting scientists.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Engage

Nourish

Experimental group

Description:

The Nourish intervention is a school food environment intervention which included weekly healthy snack provision supplied by food industry partners, enhancement of canteen dining area (café style, tablecloths, centre pieces, bunting and menu boards, healthy eating posters), attendance at Tasting Days held in Higher Education Colleges (children were encouraged to try new foods provided by industry partners and received stamps on 'food passports' in return) and sensory educational and cookery activities.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Nourish

Nourish and Engage

Experimental group

Description:

This arm of the intervention delivered both the Nourish and Engage interventions as detailed above.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Nourish

Behavioral: Engage

Delayed

No Intervention group

Description:

The delayed arm of the intervention was the control arm. Schools randomised to this arm of the study were offered the Engage intervention resources after endpoint data collection.