There are 5,413,980 school-aged children attending 14,600 schools in Canada, and Kate Storey wants every single one of them to have access to the healthiest schools possible.
The University of Alberta School of Public Health professor has devoted a decade of research to proving that schools are ideal places to support kids in not only learning about everything from good nutrition to physical activity and more, but also creating healthy environments.
"Healthy kids learn better," Storey says. "Kids that are tired, that aren't getting proper nutrition, physical activity, if mental health is a challenge, it's really, really hard for them to learn. They need supportive, healthy environments to thrive."
Storey has just been awarded $1.6 million to develop a suite of tools to measure success in creating healthy schools, with the ultimate goal of co-creating and launching a national healthy schools framework.
The grant was given by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund through One Child Every Child, an Alberta-based research initiative.
"The goal of this project is to have an evidence-based practical platform where any school can look at how they're doing over time in terms of creating a healthy school community," says Storey, who is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research / Public Health Agency of Canada Applied Public Health Chair.
"It's hard to know if you're successful if you don't have a way to measure and evaluate," she says.
Children have the highest rate of food insecurity among all age groups in Canada, one in three children are living with overweight or obesity, and less than 20 per cent meet the daily movement guidelines for good health, according to Storey. She notes that Indigenous youth are disproportionately affected by poor health due to the lasting effects of colonization.
Unhealthy behaviours in childhood tend to persist into adulthood, reinforcing the case for prevention and intervention during the school years.
Storey has previously published eight "essential conditions" to create a healthy school community, starting with involving students and tailoring programs for each place, training staff and seeking local, provincial and national political support.
(Photo: Supplied)
Storey tested these essential conditions in all provinces and territories, and also with Indigenous school communities through the Indigenous Youth Mentorship Program, and they have been adopted as Canada's national healthy school standards by the Canadian Healthy Schools Alliance.
"My team conducted research in partnership with students, with parents, with teachers, with school staff, with administrators, with health services, with government, with a whole host of people to understand what it takes to create healthy schools," says Storey. "We now know that by working through these essential conditions, you are going to create a healthy school community which will ultimately benefit the holistic wellbeing and educational attainment of children and youth."
Storey sees a need for better evaluation and monitoring so that schools can implement the conditions.
"We have identified a huge gap," she says. "We need evidence to guide effective action, and we need to coordinate healthy schools' efforts locally, provincially, territorially and nationally."
To fill this gap, the evaluation tools will be co-created in consultation with students, Indigenous school authorities, teachers, school administrators and other partners to ensure they meet the broadest needs. And they will go beyond evaluation to supporting improvements in school health.
"The tools will not be just a survey that you fill out, they are also an intervention. Are students involved in what we're planning in our school community? If the answer is no, then the tool will have resources and support to build that in. It's not just a tool, it's a way to support implementation."
Storey's work shows that the impact of effective school health programs goes well beyond the school walls.
"Think about the 70s and 80s with seatbelt use, tobacco cessation and recycling. Kids learned at school and took the message home," she says. "We've realized that kids can drive change not just for their own peers, but for their family members and for their community."
Storey is a distinguished researcher with the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation, a member of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute (WCHRI) and a scientist with the Centre for Healthy Communities.
One Child Every Child is funding three new U of A projects, including Storey's, as well as "Complications and Conditions in Pregnancy" by Padma Kaul, professor of medicine, and "Mapping and modelling the early human brain-placenta axis" by Meghan Riddell, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Both are also members of WCHRI.
