Sustainability via Active Garden Education: The sustainability action plan model and process

Authors: LEE, REBECCA - Arizona State University; SZESZULSKI, JACOB - Texas A&M Agrilife; LORENZO, ELIZABETH - University Of Texas Medical Branch; ARRIOLA, ANEL - Non ARS Employee; BRUENING, MEG - Arizona State University; ESTABROOKS, PAUL - University Of Utah; HILL, JENNIE - University Of Utah; O'CONNOR, TERESIA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); SHAIBI, GABRIEL - Arizona State University; SOLTERO, ERICA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); TODD, MICHAEL - Arizona State University

Submitted to: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/27/2022
Publication Date: 5/1/2022
Citation: Lee, R.E., Szeszulski, J., Lorenzo, E., Arriola, A., Bruening, M., Estabrooks, P.A., Hill, J.L., O'Connor, T.M., Shaibi, G.Q., Soltero, E.G., Todd, M. 2022. Sustainability via Active Garden Education: The sustainability action plan model and process. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 19(9). Article 5511. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095511.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095511

Interpretive Summary: This paper describes the development of a plan for sustaining a health promotion program in early care and education centers (ECECs). Such plans are vital because many programs evaluated by research studies do not plan beyond the research funding period. Sustaining programs in real world settings pose new challenges and issues that need to be considered. Programs for ECECs are driven by guidelines that govern the ECECs and programs delivered with such centers. Therefore, the sustainability action plan for the Active Garden Education curriculum and program used a Community-Based Participatory Research approach with important stakeholders and the Ecological Model of Obesity to develop a sustainability plan with corresponding definitions and methodology. The plan and measures link the early care and education environment with the community, policies/guidelines and classroom practices. The Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE) provides an example for how the evaluate the program over time and refine processes to sustain the program which can help inform the delivery and scalability of other interventions or programs within ECECs.

Technical Abstract: Sustainability of intervention programming is challenging to achieve under real world conditions, since few models exist and many studies do not plan far beyond the funding period. Programming content in early care and education centers (ECECs) is often driven by guidelines. However, implementation is very sensitive to contextual factors, such as the setting and implementer (teacher) characteristics. This paper presents the model, definitions, and methodology used for the sustainability action plan capitalizing on a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, developed for a multi-site, multi-level garden-based childhood obesity prevention study, Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE). The Ecologic Model of Obesity is applied to develop a sustainability action plan (SAP) and accompanying measures to link early care and education (ECE) environment, the community, policies, and classroom practices to an early childhood obesity prevention program. The SAGE SAP provides an example of how to iteratively evaluate and refine sustainability processes for an obesity prevention intervention utilizing CBPR approaches and will be applied to assess the sustainability of SAGE in a cluster randomized controlled trial. This SAP model can also help inform intervention delivery and scalability within ECECs.