A school-based intervention to teach 3-4 grades children about healthy heart; the Persian Gulf healthy heart project.

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular health promotion in children has the potential to reduce the risk of atherosclerosis in both the individual child and the population at large. It thus seems eminently reasonable to initiate healthful lifestyle training in childhood to promote improved cardiovascular health in adult life. AIMS To test the hypothesis that a year long, classroom-based education for the third and fourth graders could change their knowledge scores about healthy heart. SETTINGS AND DESIGN A randomized, controlled trial in elementary schools of Bushehr/Iran. METHODS AND MATERIALS A total of 14 elementary schools, categorized by socioeconomic types and male and female setting were selected and randomized into control or intervention groups. Subjects were 1128 third and fourth graders, aged 9 to 10 years (49.1% boys and 50.9% girls). Over a course of 8 weeks, health educators and sport teachers of the elementary schools presented two hours sessions per week on heart function, nutrition, and exercise for healthy heart and living tobacco free for the intervention group. The education program was based on HeartPower! Program, an American Heart Association program. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test and Bonferroni correction for the two pair wise comparisons were used. RESULTS Total heart knowledge at posttest was 25% correct higher in the intervention than in the control group (p< 0.001). Difference in means of total healthy heart knowledge scores between control and intervention group increased from 1.43 points in baseline to 4.02 points in posttest (p< 0.001). CONCLUSION It can be concluded that the classroom-based cardiovascular health promotion had a significant effect on the heart healthy knowledge. Therefore, schools provide an excellent setting for introducing comprehensive healthy heart education and promotion of cardiovascular health to the general population.