Grants

Evaluating physical activity in the randomized experiment of Playworks

This grant supports the collection of objective data on children's physical activity in the Playworks program through the use of accelerometers. Accelerometers are devices that children can wear to accurately measure their movement. An important focus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) program to prevent childhood obesity is to increase the amount of physical activity that children get in school. Playworks is a national program of RWJF that provides structured play during recess, classroom time and after school in poor urban school districts, which include a large proportion of the children who are most vulnerable to becoming obese. RWJF has funded a place-based, randomized experiment to assess a variety of Playworks' outcomes, including physical activity. In expanding the experiment through the use of accelerometers, the evaluation team will add information to their final report or policy briefs that school and health decision-makers will find credible. Another deliverable will be a public-use dataset for inclusion in the Foundation's Health and Medical Care Archive. RWJF will retain ownership of the accelerometers, and at the conclusion of the evaluation the grantee will return them to the Foundation for use by other grantees.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $552,859.00

Awarded on: 9/8/2010

Time frame: 1/15/2011 - 6/30/2013

Grant Number: 67877

Grantee

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

600 Alexander Park
P.O. Box 2393
Princeton, NJ, 08543-2393

609-799-3535
Website

Susanne N. James-Burdumy
Project Director

609-275-2248
Email

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