Impact of school closures on the health and well-being of primary school children in Wales UK: a routine data linkage study using the HAPPEN Survey (2018–2020)

  1. Michaela James
  2. Emily Marchant
  3. Margaret Anne Defeyter
  4. Jayne Woodside
  5. Sinead Brophy

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Abstract

This study aimed to explore the relationship between initial school closures and children’s health by comparing health and well-being outcomes collected during school closures (April–June 2020) via HAPPEN (the Health and Attainment of Pupils in a Primary Education Network) with data from the same period in 2019 and 2018 via the HAPPEN Survey.

Setting

The study was conducted online with 161 primary schools across Wales involved in the ‘HAPPEN At Home’ Survey.

Participants

Data were collected via the ‘HAPPEN At Home’ Survey capturing the typical health behaviours of children aged 8–11 years from 1333 participants across Wales. These data were compared with data in 2018 and 2019 also collected between April and June, from HAPPEN (2019 (n=1150) and 2018 (n=475)).

Primary and secondary outcome measures

Primary outcomes included validated measures of physical activity, screen time, diet and dental health, as well as well-being, competency and autonomy. Free school meal (FSM) status was used as a proxy for socioeconomic deprivation. Analyses were repeated stratifying by FSM.

Results

Comparing responses between April–June in 2020 (n=1068), 2019 (n=1150) and 2018 (n=475), there were improvements in physical activity levels, sleep time, happiness and general well-being for children during school closures compared with previous years. However, children on FSM ate fewer fruits and vegetables (21% less at five or more portions of fruits and vegetables (95% CI: 5.7% to 37%)) and had lower self-assessed school competence compared with 2019. Compared with those not on FSM, they also spent less time doing physical activity (13.03%, 95% CI: 3.3% to 21.7%) and consumed more takeaways (16.3%, 95% CI: 2% to 30%) during school closures.

Conclusions

This study suggests that schools are important in reducing inequalities in physical health. The physical health (eg, physical activity and diet) of children eligible for FSM may be affected by prolonged school closures.

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  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051574
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.04.21251155: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Raw data was coded using STATA (version 16) to produce a dataset for the purpose of analyses.
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.04.21251155 on medRxiv