A pragmatic randomised controlled trial of the impact of an evidence-informed physical activity policy in Western Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) services.

This study examined the effectiveness of the Play Active intervention on changes in educator-reported daily time provided for children to be physically active at ECEC. The uptake of the policy practices by directors and educators (implementation outcomes), and the fidelity, reach, awareness, and acceptability of Play Active (process outcomes) were also examined. Play Active was developed to be a low-cost, feasible, acceptable, and high-fidelity program. The central component of Play Active was a four-page editable evidence-informed physical activity policy template which was emailed to intervention ECEC service directors after they completed baseline data collection. The policy template included two overarching key statements and nine age-specific recommendations on the amount of physical activity and sedentary time (including screen time), for young children whilst in ECEC. To support achieving these recommendations, the policy template also included 25 physical activity-related practices. Educator-reported time for children’s daily physical activity did not change. However, there was an increase in director-reported uptake of physical activity policy practices. The Play Active intervention had high fidelity of implementation support, excellent reach for four of the six implementation support strategies, and high acceptability and awareness