Enhancing the Use of the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) Tool in Early Care and Education Settings

The Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) is a tool designed to evaluate practices, environmental attributes, and policies of early care and education (ECE) settings that influence children’s nutrition and physical activity. The purpose of this project is to provide easy-to-use and readily available resources to facilitate the EPAO tool’s use by researchers and public health practitioners. There will be three phases to the project. First, the team will revise older versions of the EPAO and EPAO-Self Report (EPAO-SR) instruments based on updates to the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self Assessment for Child Care (NAPSACC) best practices made in 2013. Next, the corresponding resources needed for efficient data entry and management will be created along with a data dictionary with clear labels/definitions for all variables. The final phase will be to develop a comprehensive training webinar and video-based certification process for EPAO data collectors. The resources developed through this project will be free and publically available on the Children’s Healthy Weight Research Group’s website.