Daniel Berglind at GPH receives two grants for prevention research on children's movement

Daniel Berglind at the Department of Global Public Health is awarded 3 648 000 SEK from the Swedish Cancer Society and 3 512 336 SEK from Forma for two movement projects on preschool and school children's physical activity.

The first project, called The Movement Project, is called: Increasing population levels of physical activity and leveling out inequalities in physical health in preschoolers: a randomised physical activity trial in Stockholm public preschools and has been run by the Center for Epidemiology and Community Medicine (CES). 

- I am incredibly happy to have received this grant! It is really appreciated and important for public health that prevention research is awarded, says Daniel Berglind.

The preschool project is world's largest randomised preschool trial with 3234 preschool children in 124 municipal preschools that aims to increase levels of physical activity at the community level by implementing policies for physical activity in preschools in all 13 Stockholm districts. Because preschool enrollment is not segregated on socioeconomic factors, the project strives to promote healthy behaviors for physical activity in all socioeconomic groups, reduce existing disparities, and discourage young children from developing cancer (primary prevention) over life. The grant from the Swedish Cancer Society is a Fellowship in prevention research for 3 years.

- When I received the email about the grant being granted, I was actually down in the basement working out on my beloved rowing machine. The perfect way of celebration for an Associate Professor in Public Health with a focus on physical activity, says Daniel.

The Movement Project has been an extensive project with data collection where over 3 000 preschool children carried an accelerometer (a device that measures or acceleration of motion) around the wrist for 1 week at baseline and at 6 months of follow-up.

-Many of us have worked hard with all the logistics around the data collection, especially one of my doctoral students, Chu Chen, who did much of the data collection itself. The grant enables me to now devote myself to data analysis and write scientific articles most of my time over the next 3 years, which I am very much looking forward to after several years of data collection, says Daniel.

The Schoolyard Project

The second granted project is a Schoolyard Project together with the City of Stockholm.  The City of Stockholm plans to rebuild approx. 5 schoolyards per year over the next few years. The Schoolyard Project is an ongoing project that will evaluate how this remodeling of schoolyards, with more greenery and aspects of the schoolyard that are linked to children's physical activity, can increase schoolchildren's levels of physical activity.

- Establishing such healthy activity habits early in life will improve the health of school children and thus the population in the long term, which is a great motivation for this project, Daniel concludes.

The Schoolyard Project has so far been financed by the Cancer Foundation and the KI Research Foundation, but now also receives contributions from Forma.