HALO Director Dr. Mark Tremblay was part of a group who just published a paper titled “Exploring parents’ message receipt and message enactment of the world’s first integrated movement behaviour guidelines for children and youth” in the Journal of Health Communication.

In this prospective randomized experiment, parents (n= 162) were randomized to read integrated, segregated, or control guidelines and complete pre, post, and 2-week follow-up surveys. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed significantly higher message enactment outcomes among participants in the integrated guidelines group (p< .05). Message receipt and enactment outcomes were significantly correlated (r> .171, p< .05).

These findings highlight that parents’ initial receipt of a message is important for subsequent behaviour change in a youth movement behaviour context. Furthermore, the integrated guidelines strategy may have an advantage in promoting guideline update and should continue to be explored.

Citation: Tennant EM, Tremblay MS, Faulkner G, Gainforth HL, Latimer-Cheung AE. Exploring Parents’ Message Receipt and Message Enactment of the World’s First Integrated Movement Behaviour Guidelines for Children and Youth. J Health Commun. 2019 Oct 12:1-11.