Local Data for Action: Statewide Dissemination of School Wellness Policy Evaluations in Wisconsin

Abstract

School settings can influence child health, including physical activity and diet, through the promotion of high-quality wellness policies. Many studies have analyzed the quality of school wellness policies, but evidence is lacking regarding the dissemination of the policy evaluation results to school districts. This study describes the process the Wisconsin Health Atlas followed to disseminate tailored school wellness policy data reports and interactive dashboards to school districts throughout the state and the results of the statewide dissemination efforts. Prioritizing the translation of research to practice, the process included collaborating with key stakeholders and partners to provide formative feedback on the dissemination activities. The electronic and hard copy reports were disseminated to 232 districts through email and U.S. mail. Each district received a tailored report featuring an executive summary, local data for action, personalized policy recommendations, best practices, and a unique code to enter into interactive data dashboards to explore additional local, regional, and state-level data. In the utilization follow-up survey (20.3% response rate), respondents indicated that the report will help their district to improve the quality of their school wellness policy. Additionally, respondents who had used the report specified they used the data to identify areas for policy improvement and to support their triennial assessment, suggesting that districts value the technical support. To support school districts in improving the quality of school wellness policies, we recommend researchers prioritize collaborative dissemination efforts and provide actionable policy data when conducting school wellness policy evaluations.

Assessing the Effects of a Statewide Training Initiative on Local School Wellness Policies

“…Another technical assistance strategy is to evaluate district policies and provide individualized feedback. In Wisconsin, a team of researchers working with the state education agency collected and scored district policies using a standard measure called the WellSAT (Schwartz et al, 2020), and sent reports to districts with tailored policy improvement recommendations (Skalitzky et al, 2022). Similarly, the state SNAP-Ed agencies in Arizona score policies with the WellSAT and provided tailored feedback to districts (LeGros et al, 2019).…”