Science Engagement to Empower Disadvantaged adoleScents (SEEDS Project)

Conditions

Healthy Lifestyle

Keywords

Healthy Lifestyle, Science Interest, Adolescents, Deprived, Citizen Science

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.

Detailed description

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. The aim is to engage teenagers on this citizen science project to collaborate in all phases of the study: problem definition, data collection, analyses and dissemination. This will empower them to change habits, thereby contributing to behavioural changes. This cluster-randomized control trial involves intervention and control high-schools from deprived areas in the Netherlands, England, Greece and Spain. 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. Outcomes in health behaviours and science literacy will be assessed by validated questionnaires at the start and end of the project.

Wargers A, Senequier A, Elphick CM, Mölenberg FJM, Williams CA, Llauradó E, Solà R, Manios Y, Mavrogianni C, Murray C, Jansen W, Vlachopoulos D.

2026-06-19

10.1136/bmjopen-2025-115125

Impact of a participatory research intervention based on a citizen science approach on snacking consumption in European adolescents from deprived areas: a cluster randomised control trial of the SEEDS project

Judit Queral, Christina Mavrogianni, Yannis Manios, Famke J. M. Mölenberg, Wilma Jansen et al. (10 authors)

BMC Public Health2026-03-05

10.1186/s12889-026-26877-5

Comparison of the four co-created interventions to improve snacking and physical activity behaviour in European adolescents: the SEEDS project

Judit Queral, Elisabet Llauradó, Annemieke Wargers, Wilma Jansen, Yannis Μanios et al. (10 authors)

BMC Public Health2025-03-011 citations

10.1186/s12889-025-22091-x

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.

Wargers A, Elphick CM, Mölenberg FJM, Senequier A, Manios Y, Mavrogianni C, Murray C, Queral J, Tarro L, Williams CA, Vlachopoulos D, Jansen W.

2024-07-25

10.1186/s12889-024-19419-4

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

Annemieke Wargers, Judit Queral, Famke J. M. Mölenberg, Lucía Tarro, Christopher M. Elphick et al. (15 authors)

BMJ Open2023-05-0110 citations

10.1136/bmjopen-2022-070169

Interventions

BEHAVIORALIntervention Group

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.

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)

Intervention model description

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.

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

13 Years to 15 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

per high schools: * 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.

Exclusion criteria

per high schools: * The non-completion of one of the inclusion criteria. Inclusion Criteria per participants: * 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.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Physical activity	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	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.
Youth interest in science technology engineering and math (STEM) career.	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	Changes in STEM career. This outcome will be measure by Attitude towards STEM questionnaire.
Science capital perception and interest	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	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.
Youth interest in life science	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	Changes in life science interest. This outcome will be measure by STEM interest survey.
Sedentary time	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	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).
Snacking choices	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	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).

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Health-related behaviour	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	Health-related behaviour chosen by the ambassadors (each country could decide to include or not): this outcome will be decided after focus group, considering that SEEDS project is an extreme CS project, and ambassadors should be involved in the whole process and choose at least one of the three outcomes. The tool for evaluating this outcome will be developed for each country after focus groups implementation.
Determinants of each of the behaviours	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	According to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the main determinants of behaviour are attitude, beliefs, subjective norms and perceived control, which all shape the behavioural intentions. For this purpose, several questions will be included to assess the determinants of behaviours, mainly related to attitudes and environmental factors, also considering the results of the focus groups, according to the guidelines.

Other

Measure	Time frame	Description
Sex	Baseline	Percentage of males and females
Country of birth of the parents	Baseline	Country of birth of the parents
Country of birth of the child	Baseline	Country of birth of the child
Level of education	Baseline	Academic course
Grade	Baseline	Academic course
Age	Baseline	Median age of participants
Family information	Change from Baseline to end-of-study (6-month)	Includes questions from Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC) validated questionnaire about family, such as: family affluence scale (FAS scale ranges from 0 - low affluence to 9 high affluence), family structure and family meals and, questions about environment like the use of local green space.

Countries

Greece, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom

Outcome results

None listed