How do social inequalities relate to the health of our children?

The extent to which social inequalities are reflected in indicators of physical and mental health and the impact of social inequalities on cognitive functions and school performance of children in Ostrava will be monitored in research launched by the Faculty of Education of the OU in the REFRESH project.

The Faculty of Education of the University of Ostrava has launched a pilot research project REFRESH, which will, among other things, monitor the extent to which social inequalities are reflected in indicators of physical and mental health and what impact social differences have on cognitive function and school performance of children in the Ostrava region and adjacent regions. "Similar research has been conducted in separate areas in the past, but certainly not to the extent and complexity we are trying to achieve," says Markéta Rygelová from the Department of Human Movement Studies, who is involved in the research.

The research is made possible thanks to the REFRESH project, which, among other things, is looking for ways to improve education and raise the health and standard of living of our region's residents. Massive data collection, collation and analysis can provide answers to the questions of how much influence the environment in which children live, their family background and social context have on their overall mental and physical well-being in our region.

Now researchers from the Department of Human Movement Studies at the Faculty of Education of the OU are piloting the first questionnaires and tools for assessing cognitive functions on a selected group of pupils. The children provide feedback and thanks to them, the researchers at the University of Ostrava can create "child-tailored" questionnaires to make sure that the young respondents understand the questions or pictures, understand what the researchers are asking them and can then offer valid answers. Once the tests are in their final form, the researchers will begin massive data collection. The next phase of the research will focus on comparing and evaluating them. The first "live" testing in schools is expected to begin in the autumn.

What and how the researchers are finding out

For this research, researchers will reach up to 600 children aged 8 to 11 from different schools across the region. For the research, experts will select primary schools with a mix of children from different socio-economic backgrounds. The children will answer questions related to their emotional experience of a variety of life situations, self-assess their motor skills and undergo a series of neurocognitive tests to assess cognitive functions such as attention, memory or flexibility of thought. "We are trying to find out what factors contribute to the mental and physical well-being of children in our region and whether physical activity plays a significant role in this. Indeed, an important aspect of physical activity is also its social, emotional and cognitive dimension. Group physical activity can improve social interactions and emotions in a group, regardless of children's disabilities. It can bring everyone together regardless of gender or race. It often serves as a therapy and relieves tension, improves attention and concentration for teaching," explains psychologist Vera Kristýna Jandačková.

In addition to questionnaires devoted to children's mental health, experts from the Department of Human Movement Studies will use mostly pictorial questionnaires to find out their relationship to physical education and how they themselves evaluate their movement skills or how they perceive their teachers.

"We will be interested in how children perceive certain physical activities, how close they are to movement and sport, and to what extent these things differ between children from different social situations. The overall goal is to create a comprehensive picture of children's movement literacy and perception of physical education in our region and to identify opportunities for improving the quality of physical education and the preparation of future teachers," says Markéta Rygelová.

In addition to the questionnaire survey, the children will also be subjected to motor skills testing directly in the gym, where they will undergo standardized motor tests. The children involved will also be given a wearable device that records the level and intensity of their physical activity and heart rate during the day. They will also have their body composition measured, i.e. the ratio between the amount of fat and muscle tissue and other body mass. Experts will get an overview of whether the answers in the questionnaire correlate with the measured data and also how the parameters of exercise behaviour are related to physical or mental health.

"We are trying to find out whether higher quality physical education can be associated with better body composition parameters and lower prevalence of obesity in children. Adequate body weight, the appropriate ratio between muscle and fat mass, is an important indicator of an individual's health status. In the context of the current negative changes - the increase in obesity in children, which has been further accentuated by the reduction of physical activity during the covid period, we consider this to be a very important issue," adds kinanthropologist Petr Kutáč.

New methodology for assessing children's motor literacy

According to the Mark Rygiene is to get the data, also the comparison of the time, where, simplified, to point out the possible causal relationship between the causal relationship between the level of the grammar, family and the success of the school. "Measures will be the same as the same children and the unique aspect of the two years and the unique aspect of the research is also the involvement of the parents and the parents themselves," the addition of the same research team of the same pedagogy.

"For the schools and their teachers want to standardize the test of the battery, which can be able to be able to basic movement and coordination ability, which is essential for the overall development of the children. The internationally recognized CAMSA (Canadian Agility and Movement Skill Assessment) battery, which is designed specifically for children at this age, will be used for this testing. To the future is a great potential to help the teacher to the same time and the simplest way to assess the movement of the movement, right in the gymnasium," adds to the kinatropology of Jaroslav Uchytil.

All departments of the Faculty of Education are involved in the project and will investigate various factors related to children's school success (e.g. resilience or psychological resilience, literacy, technical and visual literacy, etc.). Thus, the first results and outputs of a large-scale research could be known during 2026. The data obtained on social inequalities specifically in children's mental and physical health may serve to inform further large-scale comparative research in the future and explore the impact of effective interventions to increase children's physical literacy in the context of education.