ActiveCHILD Physical activity in under5s
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The ActiveCHILD study: Understanding behavioural pathways and interventions for physical activity and health in children with physical limitations v1
IRAS ID
218313
Contact name
Niina Kolehmainen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
8126, NuTH R&D
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 4 months, 23 days
Research summary
In this programme of research, we seek to find out how NHS professionals can support children (0-5 years) with and without physical limitations to participate in daily physical activity.
Being active is how young children engage with the world and enjoy life. It improves their bones, muscles, heart, blood vessels, mental health, physical skills, thinking, and learning. UK physical activity guidelines recommend that all children are active from birth, but only around 1 in every 10 under5s meets these levels. Children with physical limitations are particularly likely to be inactive.
Increasing participation in physical activity would: i) Promote children's health both now and in the future. ii) Prevent future health problems (e.g. diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, and depression) and disability. iii) Prevent some of the personal, family, health, and social care costs associated with ill health and disability.
This research is funded by NIHR from 2016 to 2021 and consists of three studies:
1: A longitudinal study where we follow children up for 3 years to find out about their participation in physical activity and factors influencing it.
2: A health economics study to estimate the costs and benefits of early life physical activity over the life course.
3: An intervention development study to design specific intervention techniques that can be repeated in practice, and to pilot these techniques.The research will generate knowledge about children’s physical activity, its costs and benefits, and pathways to increasing it. This will feed into the development of evidence-based training courses, guidelines, and policy to increase early life participation in physical activity.
Any specific interventions that we ill develop will be advanced to evaluation(s) through spin-off grant applications (with separate HRA/REC applications). The interventions, if effective, will directly improve children’s participation, health, and functioning.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NE/0051
Date of REC Opinion
17 Mar 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion