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Background: People frequently make decisions about what can improve their health. They do this based on large amounts of information that they get from different sources, which include claims about what harms or improves health. People therefore need skills to assess the trustworthiness of health claims. The Informed Health Choices (IHC) Key Concepts framework was used to develop the ‘Be Smart about your Health’ secondary school resources to help students in lower secondary to assess health claims about the effects of treatments. We are evaluating these resources in a cluster randomized trial in 80 lower secondary schools in Kenya. This protocol is for a process evaluation that will be conducted alongside the trial. The objective of this evaluation is to explore the extent to which the intervention was delivered as planned; understand factors that facilitated or hindered the delivery and impact of the resources; and antici-pated and unanticipated effects. Study design: We will employ a mixed-methods design using quantitative and qualita-tive data. We will collect quantitative data from all schools (n=40) allocated to the in-tervention arm using lesson evaluation forms. Our qualitative data collection will in-clude: (a) structured classroom observations in all schools (n=40), with at least one lesson observed in each school. In a sample of eight schools, we shall observe more than one lesson. (b) We will conduct focus group discussions (with students (n=4), teachers (n=1) and parents (n=4). (c) Key informant interviews with policymakers in education (n=5), teachers (n=8), and with school principals (n=8)). We will purposively select these schools based on location (urban and rural) and ownership (private and public). Data analysis: We will use framework analysis to analyze qualitative data and descrip-tive analysis to analyze quantitative data. We will summarize and appraise the confi-dence of the key findings from the qualitative data using a modified version of the GRADE-CERQual approach.

Background: There is an overabundance of claims about the advantages and disadvantages of health interventions. Many people are unable to assess the reliability of these claims. Acting on unreliable health claims or failing to act on reliable advice can lead to waste of resources and unnecessary suffering. There is a global focus on teaching critical thinking, including in the new Kenyan curriculum, however, critical thinking about health is not taught in Kenyan schools. The study planned for in this protocol is an evaluation of the effects of the Informed Health Choices secondary school intervention on the ability of lower secondary school students in Kenya to think critically about health information and choices. The intervention consists of providing teachers with digital teaching resources and training them to deliver the intervention to students. The intervention covers 10 lessons that address nine key concepts. Methods: This study is a cluster-randomized trial. We will stratify lower secondary schools by ownership and geographical location, and randomly select 80 of them. We will randomly allocate the schools to either the intervention or control group. The intervention schools will teach the 10 lessons in one academic term alongside the Kenya national secondary school curriculum. The control schools will continue teaching the national secondary school curriculum. The primary outcome measure will be a test with multiple-choice questions from the Claim Evaluations Tools item bank. The test will include two items for each of the nine concepts covered by the teaching resources. The primary outcome will be the proportion of students attaining a predetermined passing score. Trial registration: Pan African Clinical Trial Registry, trial identifier: PACTR202204883917313. Registered on 05/04/2022.

Additional file 1. Interview guides.

Additional file 3. ICT observation checklist.

Additional file 5. COREQ checklist.