The KIDS-CAN team through Dr.Vincent Onywera, Dr.Mark Tremblay and Richard Larouche have secured a grant worth CAN $ 449,200 from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to conduct a research project entitled, “Assessment of physical activity and active transport among school children in eastern, western and southern regions of Africa: the case of Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria“.
The objectives of the research project are:
- To consolidate existing information on active transportation measurement instruments and published literature on active transportation among African children and youth.
- To develop or refine an instrument or protocol to collect physical activity and active transport among African school children.
- To collect data on the physical activity and active transport among African school children living in urban, sub-urban and rural areas to help inform report cards from Kenya, Nigeria, and Mozambique (to be presented in Toronto in 2014 during the Global Summit on Physical Activity of Children).
- To collect and compare provincial/county, municipal, and school policies related to active transportation in the African countries where the data collection will occur.
- To develop a physical activity and active transport surveillance model for expansion to other LMIC countries, building off the report card knowledge translation and dissemination process used in Canada and replicated in Kenya.
- To provide recommendations for policy and programs that could be implemented based on the study findings and to suggest future research in the area.
