Science Engagement to Empower Disadvantaged adoleScents (SEEDS Project)

NCT05002049 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: SEEDS
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 720
• Locations: 4 countries
• Sites: 4

Brief Summary

SEEDS is a multicenter 24-month citizen science (CS) cluster randomized controlled study, with interventions conducted in four European countries acting as pilot sites: 1) Greece, 2) The Netherlands, 3) Spain and 4) The United Kingdom. This project will merge CS and traditional approaches and will target high schools located in deprived neighborhoods. The methodology, that combines CS and traditional science, could build effective cooperation between science and society to empower adolescents from low-income environments to adopt healthy lifestyles to prevent obesity, increase their interest in science and improve their critical thinking.

Conditions

Healthy Lifestyle

Keywords

Healthy Lifestyle; Science Interest; Adolescents; Deprived; Citizen Science

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (6)

• Physical activity

  Change in physical activity assessed by validated questionnaire HBSC and Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C). HBSC: days a week physically active for a total of at least 60 minutes, frequency of exercise in free time that participants get out of breath or sweat and means of transport to go to school. PAQ-C: 7-day recall questionnaire that assesses participation in different physical activities, as well as activity during Physical Education, lunch break, recess, after school, in the evenings and at weekends. Each of the 9 questionnaire items is scored between 1 (low) and 5 (high physical activity), and a mean score of all items constitutes the overall PAQ score.

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Snacking choices

  Change in healthy snacking choices (inside and outside school). This outcome will be assessed by validated questionnaires HBSC (times per week consume healthy and unhealthy snacking choices) and Beverage Frequency Questionnaire ( 7-day food record of beverages). Additionally, questions for assessing the frequency of consumption (times per week and time frame of the day) of each type of snack (chocolates, fruit and vegs, cakes or cookies and chocolates and sweets).

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Sedentary time

  Change in prolonged sedentary time. This outcome will be assessed by validated questionnaire HBSC (hours/day spend watching television/ playing computer games/ on computer for purposes other than playing).

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Youth interest in life science

  Changes in life science interest. This outcome will be measure by STEM interest survey.

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Science capital perception and interest

  Changes in science capital.This outcome will be measure by Science Capital Survey, developed by Archer et al. (2015): The selection of questions includes 4 components of the total Science Capital Survey: Future science job affinity (aspirations), utility of science qualifications, valuing science and scientists, and self-efficacy in science.

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Youth interest in science technology engineering and math (STEM) career.

  Changes in STEM career. This outcome will be measure by Attitude towards STEM questionnaire.

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Health-related behaviour

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Determinants of each of the behaviours

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

Other Outcomes (7)

• Family information

  Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)

• Sex

  Baseline

• Age

  Baseline

Study Arms (2)

Citizen Science Behavioral Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

The intervention group (IG) participants will receive the whole citizen science intervention of the SEEDS project, and participants will be assessed at baseline and end-of-study.

Behavioral: Intervention Group

Control Group (No intervention)

NO INTERVENTION

The controls group (CG) participants will not receive any kind of intervention, and participants will only be assessed at baseline and end-of-study.

Interventions

Intervention Group BEHAVIORAL

Teenagers with leadership skills from intervention schools (called ambassadors) and stakeholders will participate in focus groups to gain insights on the barriers and facilitators for healthy lifestyles of teenagers, and how science could help address these. Building on the information of the focus groups, ambassadors, stakeholders and other peers will participate in a collaborative competition event where the SEEDS intervention(s) will be designed. The intervention(s) will be implemented at intervention high-schools during 6 months. Outcomes in health behaviours and science literacy will be assessed by validated questionnaires at the start and end of the project.

Citizen Science Behavioral Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 13 Years - 15 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• High schools located in deprived areas. Deprived areas will be selected according to what is considered an area with a low socioeconomic level according to each country.
• Informed consent must be signed by the responsible of each high-school.

You may not qualify if:

• Adolescents aged 13- to 15-years at baseline who attended one of the participating high schools, previously randomized.
• Informed consent must be signed by their parents/legal guardians and by each adolescent.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Rovira i Virgili: lead
• University of Exeter: collaborator
• Harokopio University: collaborator
• City of Rotterdam: collaborator
• European Citizen Science Association: collaborator
• Erasmus Medical Center: collaborator
• Institut Investigacio Sanitaria Pere Virgili: collaborator

Study Sites (4)

Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, School of Health Science & Education Harokopio University, 70, El Venizelou Ave,

Athens, Kallithea, 176 71, Greece

Location

Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box, 2040

Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 3000 CA, Netherlands

Location

Institut d'Investigació Sanitaria Pere i Virgili

Reus, Tarragona, 43204, Spain

Location

Children's Health and Exercise Research Centre, Sport and Health Sciences; College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter

Exeter, United Kingdom

Location

Related Publications (3)

• Queral J, Llaurado E, Wargers A, Jansen W, Manios Y, Senequier A, Williams CA, Vlachopoulos D, Sola R, Tarro L. Comparison of the four co-created interventions to improve snacking and physical activity behaviour in European adolescents: the SEEDS project. BMC Public Health. 2025 Mar 1;25(1):829. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-22091-x.

  PMID: 40025539 DERIVED

• Wargers A, Elphick CM, Molenberg FJM, Senequier A, Manios Y, Mavrogianni C, Murray C, Queral J, Tarro L, Williams CA, Vlachopoulos D, Jansen W. Stakeholder perspectives on the barriers and facilitators of engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviours in underrepresented adolescents: a focus group study from the European SEEDS project. BMC Public Health. 2024 Jul 25;24(1):1988. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-19419-4.

  PMID: 39054496 DERIVED

• Wargers A, Queral J, Molenberg FJ, Tarro L, Elphick CM, Kalogerakou E, Karagiannis A, Llaurado E, Manios Y, Mavrogianni C, Murray C, Vlachopoulos D, Williams CA, Jansen W, Sola R. Citizen Science to improve healthy and active living among adolescents in four European countries: a protocol of the cluster randomised controlled trial of the Science Engagement to Empower aDolescentS (SEEDS) project. BMJ Open. 2023 May 8;13(5):e070169. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-070169.

  PMID: 37156575 DERIVED

Study Officials

• Rosa Solà, Prof.

  University Rovira i Virgili

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Model Details: High schools located in deprived areas will be randomized to the intervention group (IG) which will receive the whole citizen science intervention of the SEEDS project, or the controls group (CG) which will not receive any kind of intervention. As the high-schools will be the unit of randomization, this study is a cluster-randomized.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 15, 2021
• First Posted: August 12, 2021
• Study Start: September 1, 2021
• Primary Completion: June 30, 2022
• Study Completion: July 31, 2022
• Last Updated: March 23, 2023

Record last verified: 2023-03

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF
• Time Frame: Data from the project will be under embargo for a period of five years, or it will be immediately made available upon agreement from the SEEDS Consortium. After this period of time, and upon agreement from the Consortium members, the data will be located in a suitable online repository. At the time at which the data is made available through an online repository anyone will be able to access and use it, in keeping with the necessary regulations from the repository. Selected curated data in the SEEDS project will be made available to interested third parties or made available on data sharing platforms. Under no circumstances will data that contain any identifying information be offered. All relevant data will be codified. There are no restrictions regarding type of analyses
• Access Criteria: Once a request is made, responsible members of the Consortium will be contacted to internally discuss each request. Each partner needs to approve the usage of the data collected by their institution before sharing data with other researchers. A suitable data repository will be used for the legacy storage of all the relevant data from the SEEDS project. At the time of writing, one is yet to be decided, however, one which has an existing track record of appropriate need provision will be picked. All of the data can be viewed using standard issue programs, such as any word processor for the qualitative data, and an appropriate statistical analysis software package for the quantitative data.

Locations

GR (1); GB (1); ES (1); NL (1)