Table 1: Description of the interventions of the study.
Time Out (Health Promotion) Traffic Safety Plan (Health Protection) Step by Step (Disease Prevention)
Aim To provide free counselling (a “time out”) for high school students with wellbeing issues. This can be related to e.g. bullying, abuse, relationship to parents/peers, general sadness. To reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on municipal roads and paths by 50 % in the year 2017 measured relative to the average of deaths and serious injuries during the period 2005-2007 . This is equivalent to a maximum of 2 killed and 17 seriously injured. To support overweight persons with a BMI ≥ 30 to gain a healthier lifestyle.
Intervention period 2008-ongoing 2009-2017 2008-ongoing
Method(s) A social worker is available via mobile phone and agrees on meeting with the students that contact her. The social worker do counselling based on the approach “appreciated inquiry” and set up follow-up meetings as required. The plan sets up objectives for working with traffic safety in the municipality. It defines focus areas for actions and target groups to be prioritized. The methods for improving traffic safety is through physical changes in roads and paths (e.g. speed bumps, pavements, roundabouts) An interdisciplinary team consisting of a nurse, a dietician, and a physiotherapist provides teaching modules on diet, exercise, mental health, and motivation (8 sessions in total – 3 of them voluntary). Decrease in weight is not the main aim of the intervention; instead focus is on gaining a healthier lifestyle.
Evaluation No evaluation done or planned yet. However, this is queried by the social worker. No evaluation done yet, but according to plans this will be done within the intervention period and the Traffic Safety plan will be revised accordingly. No evaluation of the effect of the intervention done yet. Several evaluations of the intervention process have been carried out using information from participants. The intervention has been revised accordingly.