Study protocol for the Data Health Study - A Data-driven and Systems Approach to Health Promotion among Vocational Students in Denmark

Abstract

Abstract Background: Vocational school students exhibit significant risk behaviours in terms of poor diet, frequent use of nicotine products, inadequate fruit and vegetable intake, low levels of physical activity and poor mental health. This makes vocational students a vulnerable group for the development of noncommunicable diseases. Effective health promotion programmes targeting vocational students are needed. The Danish study ‘Data-driven and Systems Approach to Health Promotion among Vocational Students’ (Data Health) aims to develop, implement and evaluate a systems approach to support vocational schools, municipalities and local communities in implementing locally relevant health promotion actions among and for vocational students. This paper describes the Data Health programme and how implementation and preliminary effectiveness will be evaluated. Methods: The Data Health programme offers an iterative five-step process to develop changes in the systems that shapes health behaviour and wellbeing among vocational students. The programme will be implemented and evaluated at eight Danish vocational schools in four municipalities. The implementation of the process and actions will be explored using a system-based evaluation design that assesses contextual differences and the mechanisms through which the programme leads to changes in the systems. Preliminary effectiveness at individual level (students’ self-reported health behaviour and wellbeing) and organisational level (school organisational readiness reported by school staff) will be assessed using a quasi-experimental design and cross-sectional data will be collected at all eight schools simultaneously four times during the two-year study period. Discussion: We expect that the Data Health study will make significant contributions to complex intervention research by contributing to the paucity of research studies that have used systems approaches in school settings. The study will also provide evidence of successful elements for systems change and effectiveness to determine whether national scale-up can be recommended. Trial registration: Registered in ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05308459, retrospectively registered on 4th April 2022.