Illini Kindergarten Cohort
This study examines children who entered Kindergarten in the city of Champaign in 2025 and will include assessments for parents, PE teachers, and principals from schools. The aim is to assess movement behaviors, like Physical Activity, Sedentary Time, Screen Time, and Sleep, to see how they can have short and long-term impacts on children’s health.
Framework
1) The research team will establish a collaboration with a school district in the Champaign-Urbana area. The schools included in the project will help with the recruitment of participants.
2) At this time, parents and children will be invited to participate in the study. For those who accept it, children will be assessed with an accelerometer measure for a week and a health online questionnaire for parents.
3) The online questionnaire will be completed on the REDCap platform. A link/QR Code will be provided in all recruitment options, both from the schools and by the research team.
The participants will answer Sociodemographic, Physical Activity, Sleep, Screen Time, General Health, Child Development, and Stimulation questions.
4) At the end of the questionnaire, parents will be asked if the children can use the accelerometer device. For those that accept, triaxial wGT3X-BT accelerometers (Actigraph LLC., Pensacola, FL, USA; 3.3 × 4.6 × 1.5 cm; 19 g; dynamic range ± 8 g) will be worn on the left wrist for 24 h/day, during nine days, to be able to collect seven days (an entire week) of data. Device placement will be scheduled with parents, with three options: a) placement at school by a research member; b) placement at the participant’s house by a research member; c) device sent to the participant’s house by mail, with placement instructions. In the case of accelerometer malfunction or removal, participants will be asked to contact the research team to reattach the device or change it to another one. Damaged devices are the research team’s responsibility, and participants can drop out of the data collection at any time. In case of allergic reactions or any other issues related to the device’s use, participants will contact the research team, receive assistance (e.g., wrist-band or accelerometer replacement), and decide to continue or to drop the data collection.
5) After collecting all the data, the research team will work on research papers to publish the results in high-impact journals as well as prepare individual reports for the parents and their children, and the schools, with movement behaviors data, such as Physical Activity, Sleep, Sitting, and Screen Time.