Terms and definitions
| Terms | Definitions |
| Youth engagement | There is no consensus on the definition of youth engagement. For the purposes of this study, we will adopt the definition used by the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, that defines youth engagement as the meaningful participation and sustained involvement of a young person in an activity, with a focus outside of themselves.29 |
| School health promotion | The WHO defines health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.30 A key component of health promotion is that it takes the focus of individual behaviour and places effort onto the social and environmental factors that influence health and well-being. The activities related are often multidimensional and complex and in the form of prevention strategies for a group, community or population.30 In the case of school health promotion, this can be defined as any activity, project, programme or initiative that aims to promote health, or other social and environmental determinants that impact the health of students or other school-community members.8 |
| Whole-school health promotion approaches | Whole-school health promotion approaches can be considered integrated and holistic models to school health promotion that embody student health and well-being throughout every aspect and function of the school system.30 31 Whole-school health promotion approaches use various terms and may differ based on the context including health promoting schools (HPS), Comprehensive School Health, coordinated school health, and holistic school health. For the purposes of this study, we will use the term HPS when referring to whole-school health promotion approaches which is defined by the WHO as a school that consistently strengthens its capacity as a safe and healthy setting for teaching, learning and working.30 |
| Facilitator | ‘A person or thing which facilitates an action, process, result, etc.’ 32 |
| Barrier | ‘A circumstance or obstacle that keeps people or things apart or prevents communication or progress’”33 This term will be used to understand the barriers to implementation of youth engagement in school health promotion. |
| Outcome | ‘A state of affairs resulting from some process; the way something turns out; a result, a consequence; a conclusion or verdict.’34 |