Bourbonnais children have a lot to say about their health. This is one of the lessons of research conducted by a multidisciplinary team in health-applied educational sciences led by Bourbon academic Frank Pizon, authorized to lead research at the University of Clermont-Auvergne, within the public health department of the professor Laurent Gerbaud.
The team, specialized in the prevention of young people in the face of health problems (from research to intervention, approaching the determinants of health), works in particular under the supervision of the CNRS.
“We respond to multi-year calls for projects that allow us to obtain funding,” explains Frank Pizon. In 2019, a book, Health Education and Prevention, was published in both English and French by the Iste Group publishing house. “Being published in English is a guarantee of better international visibility and therefore of support”.
Specificity: they have been working for ten years with a very large audience, children, kindergartens, adolescents and young adults.
Why is the new school teacher preparation license attractive? Direction Moulins, the only sector of Auvergne
A job that interests Paris
“Our job is to analyze how children and adolescents perceive health and what determines it. To discuss with children, we use different methods, including photos, which allow them to express their point of view. We try to theorize sound conceptions, with criteria to characterize the conceptions. This theoretical work opens up a new field of research. We have developed a methodology to synthesize data from 30,000 child sentences. We are one of the few research teams able to qualitatively study so much data ”.
This data collection and analysis work is of interest to the Paris Inspectorate General for Education, Sports and Research and is closely monitored by the Clermont Rectorate. Other research projects are underway. Why, exults Frank Pizon,
“The question of student well-being is increasingly taken into consideration in National Education to help young people build themselves. We collect the words of young people in schools because it is the easiest ”.
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Building prevention policies
Academic Frank Pizon, Lecturer, HDR (Direct Research Qualified) in Educational Sciences Applied to Health
This work is carried out in particular in the Allier, as a thesis carried out by the doctoral student in educational sciences Maéliane Deyra on the certainties and doubts of primary school children about cancer funded by the Allier Departmental Council, supported by a project of the National League against cancer.
“We build health prevention policies knowing very little about what children know about their health, there have been no more than twenty articles in recent years in some countries, such as Finland, Kenya, UK. Even on an international scale, look for opinions of children is marginal. However, it is essential to build appropriate and more effective health promotion policies “, the researcher defends, the idea is that National Education professionals, communities, associations, all public health decision makers they rely on these results to implement appropriate policies.
“We would all like to collectively benefit from benefiting from the eyes of young people to understand the world. We need to take greater account of the voices of children and adolescents, and in 2022 we still don’t know how to do it on a large scale. For this we must accept to be surprised, to see our own conceptions upset ”.
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What results does the Allier have?
“In the Allier, our work has shown that young Bourbon people, from CP to high school, whether they are educated in Moulins, Montluçon or in the Bourbon mountains, do not see very well how their living environment can play a positive role in their health., while we know that two-thirds of health is mainly determined by environmental determinants: access to care, social interactions, recreational activities, pollution, etc. Individual behavior only plays a third role. We must demonstrate that the environment can be positive, that we have resources, an offer of cultural and physical activities… We also interviewed young people from Puydom ”.
A total of 1,200 young people were interviewed. First result, “children and adolescents have a lot to say about what determines their health. Children aged 6-8 have the broadest view of health, a potential that is not sufficiently taken into account “.
Second lesson, a clear difference between girls and boys: “They have a broader view of health. The kids are more focused on free time, on physical activity “.
Thirdly, the environment is perceived as a source of pollution, a difficulty rather than a resource. “The most frail children are those who consider fewer alternatives for their health, while those with a low level of health knowledge will live shorter, it has been shown. It is therefore a crucial question, how to make the provisions fairer ”.
The research team is currently working on the issue of responsiveness: reacting more quickly in a crisis situation or a normal situation and thus helping decision makers more effectively. “It currently takes several months to analyze the data. We want to reduce this delay ”.
Ariane Bouhours
Covid: what effects on young people and their health? Work done by Doctor of Life and Health Sciences Chloé Gay and Doctor of Education Maéliane Deyra with the Allier Departmental Youth Council showed that young people had not reduced their vision health during the health crisis. “But we know that the increase in physical inactivity, the lack of social interactions have a long-term impact, including on the quality of life. We will have other health crises, so we must offer young people exchange spaces to debrief on the Covid crisis “.
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