Making Sense of Physical Activity Policy Assessment: Lessons Learned, Challenges, Next Steps
Increasing population levels of physical activity is an important global health priority. The World Health Organization and many countries have developed evidence-based public health recommendations and action plans to do so. However, implementing these recommendations and plans remains limited in almost all countries, even Europe, where priorities and resources seem well aligned. Several research groups have developed policy assessment tools to understand better these challenges to evaluate policy development and implementation. The process has proved to be complex for several reasons. Increasing physical activity among populations depends upon actions in many sectors. Thus, policies must engage and include sectors beyond health. While policy is typically developed nationally, implementation often occurs at sub-national levels such as states and cities. Balancing the need for collecting complex data across multiple sectors and government levels while keeping instruments short enough to be useful for public health practitioners and appealing to policymakers takes work. In this session, we will hear from six research groups that have developed and applied policy assessment tools in Europe, Latin America, and Japan at national and sub-national levels. Each presenter will share their experiences, strengths, and weaknesses of the instruments, challenges, and planned next steps. The brief presentations will be followed by a panel discussion guided by a discussant to synthesize the research to date, summarize progress and remaining challenges, and suggest the way forward for both policy research and public health practice.
Co-chair: Peter Gelius, Institute of Sports Sciences, Université de Lausanne. Lausanne, Switzerland (peter.gelius@unil.ch)
Co-chair: Petru Sandu, Department of Public Health, University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (petrusandumd@gmail.com)
Discussant: Adrian Bauman, Emeritus Professor, Department of Public Health, University of Sydney
Presenters:
Catherine Woods, Physical Activity for Health Research Centre (PAf), Health Research Institute, Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, Ireland (Catherine.Woods@ul.ie)
Wanda Wendel-Vos, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands (wanda.vos@rivm.nl)
Antoine Noël Racine, Université Côte d’Azur, LAMHESS, France (antoine.noel-racine@univ-cotedazur.fr)
Sonja Kahlmeier, Swiss Distance University of Applied Science FFHS, Switzerland (sonja.kahlmeier@ffhs.ch)
Noriko Takeda, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan (noriko@cc.kogakuin.ac.jp)
Eugen Resendiz, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA(eresendiz@austin.utexas.edu)
Title: Physical activity policy implementation: Measures, methods and means of evaluation.
Time: 180 minutes (3 hours)
Purpose
This workshop aims to share the learnings from the Policy Evaluation Network (PEN; https://www.jpi-pen.eu/), a four million, seven country, 28-research centre project in Europe, and from the IMPAQT project. Its purpose is to provide attendees with knowledge, skills and experience of how to conduct a physical activity policy implementation evaluation nationally, regionally or locally.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this workshop, attendees will:
- Enhance their knowledge on recent developments in PA policy globally.
- Understand a range of PA policy evaluation and monitoring tools, and analyze their usefulness.
- Gain first-hand experience in using the PA-EPI, a tool designed to assess the extent of implementation of national government policies and actions to promote PA. Undertake a comparison to international best practice, learn how to identify and prioritise implementation gaps and create feasible recommendations.
- Reflect on workshop learnings to inform and stimulate future research and practice in this field.
Presenters:
Dr. Nicole R. den Braver, Ams. University Medical Centre, Netherlands
Dr. Peter Gelius, Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland
Dr. Rasa Jankauskiene, Klaipeda's University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Lithuania
Dr. Sven Messing, FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany
Dr. Petru Sandu, University of Babes-Bolyai, Dept of Public Health, Romania
Dr. Aurelie Van Hoye, University of Lorraine, France
Dr. Kevin Volf, PAfH Research Center, University of LImerick Ireland
Prof. Catherine Woods, PAfH Research Centre, Univesity of Limerick, Ireland
Prof. Joanna Zukowska, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland.
