How Are We Preparing Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Teachers to Be Health Promotors? Examining Physical Activity, Sleep and Sun Safety in Initial Teacher Education

Overview

Journal Health Promot J Austr

Publisher Wiley

Date 2025 Mar 4

PMID 40038568

Authors

Joseph J Scott

Alexandra P Metse

Bronwen M McNoe

Sally Blane

Sharyn Chin Fat

Justine Osborne

Nicky Muir

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Issue Addressed: While physical activity, sleep and sun safety (PASS) have been identified as important modifiable health behaviours and schools and teachers have been identified as vital for health promotion and primary prevention; little is known about how initial teacher education programs across Australia and New Zealand (NZ) are preparing future teachers to deliver PASS-related curriculum. This study investigated teacher educators' insights on their programs and their graduate's preparedness to plan and teach PASS education.

Methods: Teacher educators (n = 98) from Australia and NZ completed a 30-item electronic survey. Quantitative tests were used to explore differences in the data.

Results: Consistently, time spent on physical activity far outweighed sun safety and sleep with many programs having little or no sleep or sun safety content. Of concern, many indicated they did not agree, or know if their graduates were confident to plan and teach physical activity (28%), sun safety (42%) or sleep (75%) lessons, nor were they aware of the related guidelines, health benefits and risks.

Conclusions: Findings reveal significant variance in what is being offered in Australian and NZ initial teacher education programs. Findings highlight potential gaps in graduate's knowledge of various health behaviours and confidence to plan and teach related content and their preparedness for health promotion. SO WHAT?: Findings highlight a need to include more targeted health promotion education in initial teacher education in Australia and NZ to enable teachers to deliver consistent health promotion messages when they enter school settings to properly support young people's health needs.

References

Davis J, Blunden S, BoydPratt J, Corkum P, Gebert K, Trenorden K . Healthy sleep for healthy schools: A pilot study of a sleep education resource to improve adolescent sleep. Health Promot J Austr. 2022; 33 Suppl 1:379-389. PMC: 9790272. DOI: 10.1002/hpja.594. View

Clemens S, Lincoln D . Where children play most: physical activity levels of school children across four settings and policy implications. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2018; 42(6):575-581. DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.12833. View

Metse A, Eastwood P, Ree M, Lopresti A, Scott J, Bowman J . Sleep health of young adults in Western Australia and associations with physical and mental health: A population-level cross-sectional study. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2023; 47(4):100070. DOI: 10.1016/j.anzjph.2023.100070. View

Nicholson A, Hill J, Walker H, Heward S, Dobbinson S . Teacher perceptions of sun protection practices in the secondary school setting: Barriers, enablers and recommendations for future. Health Promot J Austr. 2019; 31(2):258-267. DOI: 10.1002/hpja.273. View

Janusonyte E, Buyck M, Merat R, Alipour Tehrany Y . Action during childhood for lifelong primary skin cancer prevention. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2023; 8(1):5-7. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-4642(23)00252-3. View

Bruce E, Lunt L, McDonagh J . Sleep in adolescents and young adults. Clin Med (Lond). 2017; 17(5):424-428. PMC: 6301929. DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.17-5-424. View

Pulimeno M, Piscitelli P, Colazzo S, Colao A, Miani A . School as ideal setting to promote health and wellbeing among young people. Health Promot Perspect. 2020; 10(4):316-324. PMC: 7723000. DOI: 10.34172/hpp.2020.50. View

Winslade M, Wright B, Dudley D, Cotton W, Brown A . Australian primary school communities' understandings of SunSmart: a qualitative study. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2017; 41(5):483-489. DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.12677. View

Lander N, Koorts H, Mazzoli E, Moncrieff K, Salmon J . The feasibility and impact of embedding pedagogical strategies targeting physical activity within undergraduate teacher education: . Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2020; 5:125. PMC: 6839192. DOI: 10.1186/s40814-019-0507-5. View

10.

McNoe B, Reeder A, de Lange M . SunSmart schools: a New Zealand skin cancer primary prevention intervention blueprint for primary school settings. Br J Dermatol. 2018; 179(4):963-964. DOI: 10.1111/bjd.16670. View

11.

Bauman A, Ding D . Lack of progress in physical activity in Australia: decades of national inertia?. Aust N Z J Public Health. 2024; 48(5):100180. DOI: 10.1016/j.anzjph.2024.100180. View

12.

Fitzpatrick J, Silva G, Vana K . Perceived Barriers and Facilitating Factors in Implementing Delayed School Start Times to Improve Adolescent Sleep Patterns. J Sch Health. 2020; . DOI: 10.1111/josh.12983. View

13.

Scott J, Johnston R, Blane S, Strickland M, Darby J, Gray E . Investigating primary preservice teachers' ultraviolet radiation awareness and perceived ability to teach sun safety. Health Promot J Austr. 2020; 32 Suppl 2:178-184. PMC: 8596547. DOI: 10.1002/hpja.401. View

14.

Lim D, Najafi A, Afifi L, Bassetti C, Buysse D, Han F . The need to promote sleep health in public health agendas across the globe. Lancet Public Health. 2023; 8(10):e820-e826. PMC: 10664020. DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00182-2. View

15.

Alnawwar M, Alraddadi M, Algethmi R, Salem G, Salem M, Alharbi A . The Effect of Physical Activity on Sleep Quality and Sleep Disorder: A Systematic Review. Cureus. 2023; 15(8):e43595. PMC: 10503965. DOI: 10.7759/cureus.43595. View

16.

Wilson O, Ikeda E, Hinckson E, Mandic S, Richards J, Duncan S . Results from Aotearoa New Zealand's 2022 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth: A call to address inequities in health-promoting activities. J Exerc Sci Fit. 2022; 21(1):58-66. PMC: 9663885. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesf.2022.10.009. View

17.

Raymond-Lezman J, Riskin S . Attitudes, Behaviors, and Risks of Sun Protection to Prevent Skin Cancer Amongst Children, Adolescents, and Adults. Cureus. 2023; 15(2):e34934. PMC: 10016731. DOI: 10.7759/cureus.34934. View

18.

McTiernan A, Friedenreich C, Katzmarzyk P, Powell K, Macko R, Buchner D . Physical Activity in Cancer Prevention and Survival: A Systematic Review. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019; 51(6):1252-1261. PMC: 6527123. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001937. View

19.

Scott J, Johnston R, Darby J, Blane S, Strickland M, McNoe B . A novel skin cancer prevention strategy: Preservice teachers' perceptions of a sun safety intervention and experiences in schools. Health Promot J Austr. 2022; 34(1):255-263. PMC: 10084111. DOI: 10.1002/hpja.638. View

20.

Faulkner J, OBrien W, McGrane B, Wadsworth D, Batten J, Askew C . Physical activity, mental health and well-being of adults during initial COVID-19 containment strategies: A multi-country cross-sectional analysis. J Sci Med Sport. 2020; 24(4):320-326. PMC: 7711171. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsams.2020.11.016. View