The COMPASS study: a longitudinal hierarchical research platform for evaluating natural experiments related to changes in school-level programs, policies and built environment resources

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

Few researchers have the data required to adequately understand how the school environment impacts youth health behaviour development over time.

Methods/Design

COMPASS is a prospective cohort study designed to annually collect hierarchical longitudinal data from a sample of 90 secondary schools and the 50,000+ grade 9 to 12 students attending those schools. COMPASS uses a rigorous quasi-experimental design to evaluate how changes in school programs, policies, and/or built environment (BE) characteristics are related to changes in multiple youth health behaviours and outcomes over time. These data will allow for the quasi-experimental evaluation of natural experiments that will occur within schools over the course of COMPASS, providing a means for generating “practice based evidence” in school-based prevention programming.

Discussion

COMPASS is the first study with the infrastructure to robustly evaluate the impact that changes in multiple school-level programs, policies, and BE characteristics within or surrounding a school might have on multiple youth health behaviours or outcomes over time. COMPASS will provide valuable new insight for planning, tailoring and targeting of school-based prevention initiatives where they are most likely to have impact.

Related collections

Most cited references 28

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Public health asks of systems science: to advance our evidence-based practice, can you help us get more practice-based evidence?

Lawrence W. Green (2006)

Public health asks of systems science, as it did of sociology 40 years ago, that it help us unravel the complexity of causal forces in our varied populations and the ecologically layered community and societal circumstances of public health practice. We seek a more evidence-based public health practice, but too much of our evidence comes from artificially controlled research that does not fit the realities of practice. What can we learn from our experience with sociology in the past that might guide us in drawing effectively on systems science?

0 comments Cited 92 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Methods of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey.

M. E. Thompson, G T Fong, D. Hammond … (2006)

This paper outlines the design features, data collection methods and analytic strategies of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey, a prospective study of more than 2000 longitudinal respondents per country with yearly replenishments. This survey possesses unique features that sets it apart among surveys on tobacco use and cessation. One of these features is the use of theory-driven conceptual models. In this paper, however, the focus is on the two key statistical features of the survey: longitudinal and "quasi-experimental" designs. Although it is often possible to address the same scientific questions with a cross-sectional or a longitudinal study, the latter has the major advantage of being able to distinguish changes over time within individuals from differences among people at baseline (that is, differences between age and cohort effects). Furthermore, quasi-experiments, where countries not implementing a given new tobacco control policy act as the control group to which the country implementing such a policy will be compared, provide much stronger evidence than observational studies on the effects of national-level tobacco control policies. In summary, application of rigorous research methods enables this survey to be a rich data resource, not only to evaluate policies, but also to gain new insights into the natural history of smoking cessation, through longitudinal analyses of smoker behaviour.

0 comments Cited 84 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Applicability and transferability of interventions in evidence-based public health.

Shuhong Wang, John Moss, Janet E Hiller (2006)

The context in which public health programmes operate can play an important role in influencing their implementation and effectiveness. An intervention that has been shown to be effective in one setting may turn out to be ineffective somewhere else, even supposing it can be implemented there. Therefore, systematic reviews of public health interventions should appraise the applicability of the intervention process and the transferability of the intervention effectiveness to other localities. However, applicability and transferability appraisal is seldom reported in systematic reviews of public health and health promotion interventions. This paper aims to introduce an innovative approach to bridging this gap. A list of attributes that may impact on applicability and transferability can be developed, based on knowledge of the proposed intervention. Then the applicability and transferability of the intervention to the local setting can be rated, and given a score, based on knowledge of the local setting. This approach provides a useful tool for evaluating public health interventions and provides a reliable basis for informed decision making in resource-poor settings, where rigorous primary studies are lacking and where very limited resources put a high demand on evidence-based approaches to health promotion.

0 comments Cited 75 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Scott T Leatherdale

K Stephen Brown

Valerie Carson

Ruth A Childs

Joel A Dubin

Susan J Elliott

Guy Faulkner

David Hammond

Steve Manske

Catherine M Sabiston

Rachel E Laxer

Chad Bredin

Audra Thompson-Haile

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Public Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Public Health

Title: BMC Public Health

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2458

Publication date Collection: 2014

Publication date (Electronic): 8 April 2014

Volume: 14

Page: 331

Affiliations

[1 ]School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, 200 University, Avenue, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

[2 ]Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

[3 ]Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Waterloo, Canada

[4 ]Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

[5 ]Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

[6 ]Propel Centre for Population Health Impact, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

Article

Publisher ID: 1471-2458-14-331

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-331

PMC ID: 4234205

PubMed ID: 24712314

SO-VID: 1b8a23c5-9985-47eb-8332-9b73bce309da

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

The COMPASS study: a longitudinal hierarchical research platform for evaluating natural experiments related to changes in school-level programs, policies and built environment resources

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods/Design

Discussion

Related collections

Chinese Journal of School Health

Most cited references 28

Public health asks of systems science: to advance our evidence-based practice, can you help us get more practice-based evidence?

Methods of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey.

Applicability and transferability of interventions in evidence-based public health.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 114

Cited by 101

Most referenced authors 260