Impact of Local Public Health Involvement on Local Wellness Policy Compliance in Arkansas

In 2003, Arkansas was the first state to enact BMI legislation, via AR Act 1220 that required measurement and confidential reporting of BMI information to parents of public school children. The following year, President Bush signed the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 (CNWRA) into law. The Act requires school districts develop and implement Local Wellness Policies (LWPs) with contributions from parents, students, representatives of the school food authority, the school board, school administrators, and the public. In Arkansas, Act 1220 adds to this requirement by mandating that these representatives be included on an active district wellness committee. Although the list of required partners is fairly comprehensive, it does not include public health (PH) agencies. The goal of this study is to evaluate the impact of PH involvement on district LWP compliance and innovation. All non-charter, traditional school districts in Arkansas (n=245) were contacted to obtain copies of district Wellness Policies. Wellness Policies were evaluated using the Robert Wood Johnson/University of Chicago, Illinois LWP coding tool. Logistic regression was conducted to examine the impact of PH involvement on LWP existence and score. Fifty-nine (63%) of 94 responding school districts LWPs and 82 (87%) districts specified if the LHD was involved. Districts including local health department representative were 40% more likely to have a local wellness policy (p<.05) and these LWPs scored significantly higher on the LWP coding tool (p<.05). School districts involving school nurses were also significantly more likely to have a LWP and score higher (p<.05).