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

Informations projet

HeaLS

N° de convention de subvention: 101088481

DOI

10.3030/101088481

Date de signature de la CE 24 Avril 2023

Date de début 1 Octobre 2023

Date de fin 30 Septembre 2028

Financé au titre de

• European Research Council (ERC)

Coût total

€ 2 030 461,00

Contribution de l’UE

€ 2 000 000,00

Coordonné par

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)

Période du rapport: 2023-10-01 au 2026-03-31

Résumé du contexte et des objectifs généraux du projet

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.

Travail effectué depuis le début du projet jusqu’à la fin de la période considérée dans le rapport et principaux résultats atteints jusqu’à présent

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.

Progrès au-delà de l’état des connaissances et impact potentiel prévu (y compris l’impact socio-économique et les conséquences sociétales plus larges du projet jusqu’à présent)

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.