Summary of Insights Gained from the NFL Play60/FitnessGram

Background/Purpose: The surveillance of fitness at national level can provide unique insights on population lifestyles. The NFL PLAY 60 & FITNESSGRAM Partnership provides a unique example of how state- and national-level surveillance can be implemented in a sustainable manner. This initiative is tracking fitness data on more than 1,000 schools and over 150, 000 students spread throughout the country. This presentation will describe important strategies on how to handle and report large-scale fitness data. 

Method: We used data collected from the 2012 NFL PLAY 60 cohort (n = 149, 101) to demonstrate variability in the quality and representativeness of surveillance data. We used visual representations and linear regression methods to describe the distribution and impact of indicators that can be used to reflect the quality of fitness data. Fitness outcomes for this cohort will be described using both individual and group-level data to address the implications of state-level reports of youth fitness patterns.

Analysis/Results: Our preliminary analyses on data quality indicators showed that the boy per girl ratio for each school grade ranged from 0 (i.e., indicating some school grades just had either boys or girls with valid fitness scores) to 17 (i.e., indicating a ratio of 17 boys per girl per school grade with valid fitness scores) while the total number of students per school grade ranged from 1 to 867. The proportion of youth achieving appropriate levels of fitness ranged from 56% to 61% with unscreened data resulting in consistently lower percentages of youth achieving the standard (P < .05). 

Conclusions: The appropriate use of screening procedures and use of both individual and group-level outcomes when processing large-scale fitness data can improve the quality of state- and national level reports of health-related fitness.