Background: Few researchers have the data required to adequately understand how the school environment impacts youth health behaviour development over time. Methods/Design. COMPASS is a prospective cohort study designed to annually collect hierarchical longitudinal data from a sample of 90 secondary schools and the 50,000+ grade 9 to 12 students attending those schools. COMPASS uses a rigorous quasi-experimental design to evaluate how changes in school programs, policies, and/or built environment (BE) characteristics are related to changes in multiple youth health behaviours and outcomes over time. These data will allow for the quasi-experimental evaluation of natural experiments that will occur within schools over the course of COMPASS, providing a means for generating "practice based evidence" in school-based prevention programming. Discussion. COMPASS is the first study with the infrastructure to robustly evaluate the impact that changes in multiple school-level programs, policies, and BE characteristics within or surrounding a school might have on multiple youth health behaviours or outcomes over time. COMPASS will provide valuable new insight for planning, tailoring and targeting of school-based prevention initiatives where they are most likely to have impact. © 2014 Leatherdale et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
CITATION STYLE
Leatherdale, S. T., Brown, K. S., Carson, V., Childs, R. A., Dubin, J. A., Elliott, S. J., … Thompson-Haile, A. (2014). The COMPASS study: A longitudinal hierarchical research platform for evaluating natural experiments related to changes in school-level programs, policies and built environment resources. BMC Public Health, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-331
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