Ki researcher Daniel Berglind received 6 million SEK from Formas for a project to reconstruct schoolyards with greenery for a better environment and more physically active children in urban areas.
Daniel Berglind at the Department of Global Public Health is awarded 6 milion SEK from Formas for the project “Reconstructing schoolyards with greenery to increase schoolchildren´s physical activity and health and mitigate climate changes in urban areas”
Reconstructing schoolyards with greenery is a promising primary prevention strategy to increase physical activity levels among children at the population level and mitigate environmental risks resulting from increasing climate changes in urban areas. The project will be designed as a stepped-wedge trial. The long-term impact and the aim of the project is to create guidelines for how to build environmentally friendly and physical activity-promoting schoolyards and; thus, affect short- and long-term health outcomes on a population level.
Over the course of 4 years, a total of 20 schoolyard reconstructions in Stockholm, with in total 3 600 schoolchildren, will be evaluated (5 reconstructions/year). The project results will be used to create universal guidelines for schoolyard reconstructions, at regional and national levels, with the potential to improve child health on a societal level and mitigate climate changes in urban environments.
“I’m mostly looking forward to when we have done all data collection (that hopefully runs smoothly) and we get to analyze data and get to produce some hard data/results. This is, for me personally, the phase of the project that I enjoy the most, says Daniel Berglind.
The long-term impact and the aim of the project is to create guidelines for how to build environmentally friendly and physical activity promoting schoolyards and; thus, affect short- and long-term health outcomes on a population level.
Daniels team has experience with similar projects. They recently conducted the world’s largest randomized trial in preschools including 124 preschools and 4 000 preschoolers wearing an accelerometer for 1 week at 2 occasions, and running such large “societal interventions” is very logistically demanding.
“The greatest challenge with the schoolyard project will be to operate all the logistical aspects regarding the measurement of the included children (N=3 600)” says Daniel Berglind.
About the grant
The Formas grant Designed living environment for health and well-being is a grant for projects that provide knowledge and solutions for how designed living environments can promote health and well-being.
Project title: Reconstructing schoolyards with greenery to increase schoolchildren´s physical activity and health and mitigate climate changes in urban areas
Amount: 5 927 308 SEK
The grant will be used for project-related costs (e.g., accelerometers) research personnel (PhD student) and salary for the main applicant.
