HeaLS - Effects of the implementation of the interdisciplinary topic “Health and Life Skills” in schools

Project Information

HeaLS

Grant agreement ID: 101088481

DOI

10.3030/101088481

EC signature date 24 April 2023

Start date 1 October 2023

End date 30 September 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 030 461,00

EU contribution

€ 2 000 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HeaLS (HeaLS - Effects of the implementation of the interdisciplinary topic “Health and Life Skills” in schools)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2026-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Mental illness is a major health burden worldwide and represents the health problems with the heaviest financial burden in Norway. Half of chronic mental disorders emerge before the age of 14, and mental health problems in youth are increasing. The Norwegian government has implemented the interdisciplinary topic "Health and life skills" (HLS) as part of a curriculum reform in primary and secondary education to provide pupils with competencies to promote health and self-efficacy. School-based interventions may improve mental health and academic performance, but their effects depend on the quality of implementation. There are large variations in how HLS is implemented within and across schools due to lack of national guidelines and a reliance on teachers’ professional judgment. Delayed implementation of the reform for some grades combined with access to longitudinal nationwide registry linkages allows for a natural experiment. This represents an unique opportunity to investigate the impact of diverse implementation quality and methods of a politically determined, long-term, and population-wide reform.

The aim of this study is to evaluate how variations in the implementation of HLS relate to the intervention’s effect on pupils' mental health, quality of life, school environment, academic performance, and dropout. HeaLS will collect new HLS implementation data from national samples of teachers/employees, school principals and school owners. Information from these key samples will be combined with prior linked data for 750 000 pupils from existing national registries and large surveys, including educational, health, and background information.

The interdisciplinary research group includes researchers specialized in education, mental and public health, health promotion, classroom research, school surveys, register-based studies and advanced multi-level modeling.

The evaluation may affect further implementation and practice of HLS nationally and globally and thereby promote pupils’ mental health and academic performance and thus also their inclusion in society.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first data collection was completed in June 2025, in which school owners, school leaders and teachers gave information on how HLS is practiced in their district, municipality and school. A significant dissemination effort was done during the recruitment phase, and the project and its possible consequences are now quite well known both among researchers, policy makers, school owners and school leaders nationally.

HeaLS is collaborating with another research project, LIFE, at the University of Stavanger, both for creating assessments, recruiting participants, sharing data and dissemination. LIFE is planning to do a follow-up data collection in 2026 using the same measures.

All descriptive results from the collected data have been published online (https://heals.nifu.no/). These data are now being linked to existing health and educational data from national registries and large cohort studies. Future analyses will investigate how the reported variations in implementation and practice of HLS are related to pupil mental health and educational outcomes.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time a public health-oriented topic has been implemented in the curriculum on a national level in a country with national registries enabling examination of longitudinal effects across education and mental health. HeaLS differs immensely in statistical power from previous studies investigating effects of school-based mental health interventions. In addition, it has information across multiple levels, i.e. individual, school and societal level, and may thereby investigate complex implementation mechanisms. Thus, HeaLS may have a profound impact on implementation science and practice, and through enhancing primary and secondary education enhancing pupils’ mental health and educational outcomes. This again may reduce dropout from school, exclusion from society and reduce inequalities.