612 research outputs found
Change4Life Sports Clubs research 2016 - part one report
Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards.
In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs (2011-2015). The evaluation incorporated a controlled experimental evaluation at the forefront of research in the social sciences and NESTA rated 4-5. Data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs showed that Change4Life Sports Clubs have a significant, positive impact on the activity levels, health behaviours and wellbeing of participating children. The Lifetime Evaluation Report included a number of recommendations for enhancing and building upon the evidence base for the programme. These recommendations included assessing the effectiveness of programme infrastructure in the sustainability of the clubs, assessing programme alignment with public health priorities and exploring the possibility of an economic assessment of the impact of the programme.
The Change4Life Sports Clubs Research 2016 has three key objectives:
1. Demonstrate the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs
2. Assess the value for money and return on investment of the
Change4Life Sports Clubs
3. Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the
programme (locally and nationally)
This Part 1 Report examines the evidence of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs (objective 1), explored and presented in 5 main sections:
1.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs
on healthy lifestyles
2.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs
on behaviour and engagement
3.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs are being
embedded and sustained in schools
4.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme
supports whole school agenda
5.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme
supports public health priorities
The final section of this report presents 6 area profiles to provide a geographical context to the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs
Value for money & return on Investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs ā part 2
Headlines
Unit Outcome and Unit Cost Analyses
ā¢ Change4Life Sports Clubs have a cost of Ā£305 for every new child meeting CMO physical activity guidelines, for which cost an additional
0.2 children were lifted out of inactivity and a further 2.2 children were lifted out of low activity, with each of these children experiencing an
average increase in reported wellbeing and individual development outcomes of 71%.
ā¢ In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, Change4Life Sports Clubs delivered the following NET outcomes per Ā£1,000 of
expenditure:
ā¢ 41 participants
ā¢ 0.8 sustained clubs
ā¢ 3.9 Young Leaders
ā¢ 2.8 new children meeting CMO physical activity guidelines
ā¢ 8.4 children lifted out of low activity
ā¢ 1.3 children lifted out of inactivity
ā¢ 0.1 children newly eating 5-a-day
ā¢ 0.6 children reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes
ā¢ 5.1 children starting with low activity levels reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes.
Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) Analysis
ā¢ The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is Ā£3,385 (range:Ā£3,036 to Ā£3,806).
ā¢ In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated for the NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is
Ā£3,791 (range: Ā£3,413 to Ā£4,245).
ā¢ The cost per QALY generated for Change4Life Sports Clubs is significantly below NICEās threshold for value for money per QALY of
Ā£20,000.
ā¢ The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs compares favourably to GROSS outcomes
estimated for walking buses (Ā£4,008 per QALY), dance classes (Ā£27,570 per QALY), free swimming (Ā£40,462 per QALY) and community
sports (Ā£71,456 per QALY).
ā¢ The cost per QALY generated by the NET outcomes of exercise referral interventions in adulthood is approximately five and a half times
greater than that of Change4Life Sports Clubs.
Analysis of Future Health at Ages 13-15
ā¢ The Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort are predicted to do around an hour more physical activity per week at ages 13-15 than that
predicted for the control condition counterfactual, and than todayās 13-15 year olds.
ā¢ The estimated additional physical activity of the Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort up to ages 13-15 will generate one additional QALY for
every five children that took part in Change4Life Sports Clubs.
ā¢ In comparison to the control counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated by the estimated future NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports
Clubs up to ages 13-15 is Ā£120.
ā¢ Across the Health Survey for England, the Millennium Cohort Study and the Understanding Society Survey, no data is available to support
a robust estimation of likely health and wellbeing status associated with physical activity levels at ages 13
Lifetime evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club Programme
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
The Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme is funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust. The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. SPEARās evaluations of the primary programme have consistently demonstrated that Change4Life Clubs can be effective mechanisms for increasing physical activity levels among less active primary children. Through provision of a safe space to learn and play, the opportunity to contribute to club delivery and encouragement of small steps toward increasing activity levels, the clubs have helped less active children build the competencies, confidence and resilience they need to be healthy and active throughout the lifecourse. The success of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards.
ABOUT THE EVALUATION
SPEAR was commissioned from October 2013 to March 2015 to conduct a third, successive evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme. In October 2014, SPEAR produced an Interim Report including impact and delivery insights and progress and planning for the primary evaluation. SPEAR also recommended inclusion of a lifetime impact assessment to provide additional value to the Final Report findings and the project end date was subsequently extended to May 2015. This Final Report both supplements and supersedes the Interim Report. SPEARās current evaluation of the Change4Life Clubs reflects both the changing context and priorities of the primary programme and, through a systematic, controlled experimental evaluation, provides the robust evidence base necessary to support and further the programme as it develops into the future. The 2015 Final Report presents a lifetime evaluation of the programme to date. Drawing together extant data from SPEARās 2011/12 and 2012/13 (2011-20133 ) evaluations with new data collated across 2013/14 and early 2014/154 (2013-20155 ), this report focuses on the lifetime impact of the clubs in key areas, namely physical activity, health behaviours and wellbeing. The report shows how delivery has evolved to address programme aims, discusses challenges faced embedding clubs as a sustainable part of schoolsā healthy lifestyle offer and considers preliminary evidence of the impact of the new support framework in priority areas. Data informing this report is drawn from the survey returns of over 7,500 children participating in more than 500 Change4Life Clubs and from just under 500 children in 15 control schools. Survey completions from over 2,000 club deliverers and SGOs, telephone interviews with 39 stakeholders and data from 20 site visits complements and triangulates the experimental data allowing the experiences and perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders to be presented. Key messages are summarised at the start of each section (and in the Headlines section on pages 2-5). The report is divided into three substantive sections: Who participated? What worked? and What did the clubs look like? The Influence of the Change4Life Brand is addressed and Recommendations for the programme are presented
Embedding and sustaining Change4Life Sports Clubs: regional case studies ā part three
Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health (DoH) and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards. In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs, drawing on data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs. The Change4Life Sports Clubs 2016 research builds upon the Lifetime Evaluation with new data from children, schools and public health directorates to address three key objectives: 1) Demonstrate the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs; 2) Assess the value for money and return on investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs and; 3) Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the programme. Part Three presents Area Case Studies for six geographical regions in England to provide insight into how the Change4Life Sports Clubs have been embedded and sustained in schools across each area: East, East Midlands, London, North East, North West and South East. Each case study is informed by (re)analysis of club deliverer and School Games Organiser (SGO) survey data, site visit case studies, and interviews conducted with Public Health Teams, senior school staff, Change4Life Sports Club Leads and SGOs. The final section of Part Three presents recommendations for embedding and sustaining the Change4Life Sports Clubs
The engagement of further and higher education with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games II
The second report from a survey of Podium's stakeholders, assessing the Engagement of Further and Higher Education with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
2014/15 Skills2Play/Sport programme evaluation
The Primary School Physical Literacy Framework reflects the importance of the development of childrenās physical literacy; āthe motivation, confidence, knowledge and understanding that provides children with the movement foundation for lifelong participation in physical activity.ā It also provides clear guidance as to how schools can maximise opportunities to develop the physical literacy of their pupils. Skills2Play and Skills2PlaySport are two complementary primary school physical literacy initiatives designed to support the objectives of the new Framework. Together they comprise the Skills2Play/Sport programme. Throughout this report the term Skills2Play/Sport refers to the programme, comprising both initiatives (Skills2Play and Skills2PlaySport). The programme consists of training and a resource and equipment package, which includes activity cards for both Skills2Play (blue cards) and Skills2PlaySport (purple cards) supplied to primary school deliverers by the Youth Sport Trust. Skills2Play is targeted at Key Stage 1 (KS1) and focuses on generic skill development through a range of play activities that focus on stability, object control and locomotion. Skills2PlaySport is targeted at lower Key Stage 2 (KS2) and includes multiskill activities that build from the generic skills but also introduce the connectivity with the sports through the development of skills specific to sporting āthemesā, namely āInvasionā, āStriking and Fieldingā and āNet/Wallā. Further themes are currently at varying stages of development and include āAquaticsā, āGymnasticsā, āAthleticsā and āWheelsā.
ABOUT THE EVALUATION
The Centre for Sport, Physical Education & Activity Research (SPEAR) was commissioned by the Youth Sport Trust to conduct an independent evaluation of the Skills2Play/Sport programme between January 2014 and July 2015. The initial stages of the evaluation focused on the pilot programme undertaken in fifty primary schools. In May 2014 SPEAR produced the Pilot Evaluation Report, which captured teachersā experiences of the training, resources and delivery of the Skills2Play/Sport pilot programme. The programme was then rolled out to 1,000 schools nationally and the objectives of the Evaluation of the national Skills2Play/Sport programme were as follows:
1. To assess how Skills2PlaySport and Skills2Play are being delivered and sustained in primary schools to support childrenās physical literacy development.
2. To investigate the impact of Skills2PlaySport on the development of lower Key Stage 2 childrenās physical literacy over 12 weeks of the programme.
3. To investigate the impact of Skills2Play on the development of Key Stage 1 childrenās physical literacy over 12 weeks of the programme
Deep Learning Approach to Channel Sensing and Hybrid Precoding for TDD Massive MIMO Systems
This paper proposes a deep learning approach to channel sensing and downlink
hybrid analog and digital beamforming for massive multiple-input
multiple-output systems with a limited number of radio-frequency chains
operating in the time-division duplex mode at millimeter frequency. The
conventional downlink precoding design hinges on the two-step process of first
estimating the high-dimensional channel based on the uplink pilots received
through the channel sensing matrices, then designing the precoding matrices
based on the estimated channel. This two-step process is, however, not
necessarily optimal, especially when the pilot length is short. This paper
shows that by designing the analog sensing and the downlink precoding matrices
directly from the received pilots without the intermediate channel estimation
step, the overall system performance can be significantly improved.
Specifically, we propose a channel sensing and hybrid precoding methodology
that divides the pilot phase into an analog and a digital training phase. A
deep neural network is utilized in the first phase to design the uplink channel
sensing and the downlink analog beamformer. Subsequently, we fix the analog
beamformers and design the digital precoder based on the equivalent
low-dimensional channel. A key feature of the proposed deep learning
architecture is that it decomposes into parallel independent single-user DNNs
so that the overall design is generalizable to systems with an arbitrary number
of users. Numerical comparisons reveal that the proposed methodology requires
significantly less training overhead than the channel recovery based
counterparts, and can approach the performance of systems with full channel
state information with relatively few pilots.Comment: 6 Pages, 4 figures, to appear in IEEE GLOBECOM 2020 Open Workshop on
Machine Learning in Communications (OpenMLC
Assessing the psychosocial factors associated with adherence to exercise referral schemes: a systematic review
This paper aimed to systematically review the evidence base to uncover the key psychosocial factors that underpin adherence to an exercise referral scheme (ERS). Databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, PubMed, PsycARTICLES, Open Grey, and PsycEXTRA were systematically searched. A parallel results-based convergent synthesis was performed by identifying key themes from quantitative and qualitative studies separately. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, the review included 24 eligible studies.
Key findings showed intrinsic motivation, psychological need satisfaction, social support, and self-efficacy to be the prominent psychosocial factors associated with ERS adherence. In addition, lower expectations for change when entering the scheme was associated with ERS adherence.
This review should serve as a catalyst to provide evidence-based ERS and as such ERS providers should seek to place an emphasis on participantsā expectations and beliefs when entering the scheme. Moreover, targeting the key factors of intrinsic motivation, psychological need satisfaction, social support, and self-efficacy throughout the duration of an ERS should serve to facilitate adherence
Laboratory study on the effects of nutrient enrichment on a phytoplankton population in Sawa Lake, Iraq
Nutrient enrichment of Sawa lake water was made using different nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations during autumn and spring at three stations. Different concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and N: P ratios were used to test variations in phytoplankton population dynamics. Nitrogen at a concentration of 25 Āµmole.l-1 and N: P ratio of 10:1 gave highest phytoplankton cell number at all stations and seasons. A total of 64 algal taxa dominated by Bacillariophyceae followed by Cyanophyceae and Chlorophyceae were identified. The values of Shannon index of diversity were more than one in the studied stations
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