Start Date: July 2017

ID #: 74396

Principal Investigator: Marlene Schwartz, PhD

Organization: University of Connecticut

Funding Round: Round 10

See more related research

Share


The WellSAT, created in 2005, is a leading measure used to assess the quality of written school wellness policies. The aim of the present study is to update the WellSAT to a 3.0 version based on current science and psychometric assessments to reflect the 2016 final federal rule from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The final product will be an assessment measure with high internal reliability and inter-rater reliability. This project will occur in three phases. Phase I will consist of reviewing USDA regulations and academic reports on school wellness and creating a list of topics to add and remove in WellSAT 3.0. In Phase II, the research team will analyze WellSAT 2.0 scores and gather feedback and recommendations for improvement from a sample of WellSAT 2.0 users, and create the WellSAT 3.0 with feedback from stakeholders and other researchers, practitioners, and advocates. In Phase Ill, the research team will double code a sample of 50 policies from a national database and test inter-rater and internal reliability of the revised tool.

Related Research

July 2020

Wellness School Assessment Tool Version 3.0: An Updated Quantitative Measure of Written School Wellness Policies

Schools play an important role in promoting student wellness. As directed by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, the US Department of Agriculture updated the requirements for written school wellness policies in 2016. The WellSAT (Wellness School Assessment Tool) is an online tool that provides a quantitative score for wellness policy comprehensiveness and strength. The WellSAT More

February 2025

More States and Sponsors Are Providing Grab-and-Go Meals to Children during Summer

In 2023, to respond to increased rates of child food insecurity during the summer Congress authorized states to opt in to allowing noncongregate, or “grab-and-go,” summer meal services for students in rural areas. In the summer of 2023, 46 states and DC opted in, and in the summer of 2024 all 50 states and DC More

February 2025

Consumption of the Food Groups with the Revised Benefits in the New WIC Food Package: A Scoping Review

On 18 April 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the first food package changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in over a decade, which reduced some food benefits (juice, milk, canned fish, and infant fruits and vegetables) and offered substitutes (cash-value vouchers (CVVs) or cash-value More