Understanding the personal, social and environmental impact upon

physical activity of the ‘Devon Active Villages’ programme

Emma Solomon (PhD researcher)

CSLT Research Showcase, April 23rd 2012, London, UKPhysical activity and health

The ‘Devon Active Villages’ programme

• Research partner: Active Devon

• Aim: to support rural village communities to provide sustainable opportunities for sports and physical activity participation.

• £1 million programme (funded by Sport England & Devon County Council).

The programme will work by:1. Identifying what opportunities each local community wants2. Providing support to “kick start” activities3. Supporting people within their communities to sustain the opportunities

‘Devon Active Villages’ timetable

Physical activity research

• In England, only 39% of men and 32% of women meet the minimum recommended guidelines for physical activity. (HSE, 2008)

• Community-level physical activity interventions are considered a public health priority. (Bauman & Owen, 1999)

• Creating more ‘activity-friendly’ environments holds promise for improving population-wide physical activity. (King & Sallis, 2009)

Evaluating physical activity programmes

• Little is known about the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve physical activity participation.

• Evaluations of physical activity interventions are necessary to further the understanding of what makes interventions successful.

• Lack of rigorous evaluations of public health interventions. (Wanless, 2004)

Stepped wedge randomised trial designs

An intervention is delivered over several stages in a randomised sequence until all eligible communities have received the intervention.

All communities are measured after each new cluster has received the intervention.

This study design is beneficial when:1.It is believed that the intervention will do more good than harm.2.An intervention cannot be delivered concurrently to all units.

Data collection time points

Stage 1BaselineSurvey

Stage 2Survey

Stage 3Survey

Stage 4Survey

Stage 5Survey

What we will measure

• General participant characteristics (age, height, weight etc.)

• Health and physical activity behaviour

• Awareness of Devon Active Villages and other programmes

• Physical activity attitudes and intentions

• Neighbourhood characteristics

Power calculations

• To detect a significant increase in the proportion of individuals meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines, power calculations revealed that we would need:

• 10 completed responses from each of the 128 villages at each stage (6400 participants altogether).

What we hope to find

Primary outcome: • Increased physical activity in villages after the intervention has been delivered, compared to before.

Secondary outcomes:• Improved attitudes towards physical activity• High levels of awareness and participation in the programme• Increased sense of social support within the community• Environments more facilitative of physical activity

Understand how the programme has impacted on the community, and discover what types of individuals take part in the activities.

Response rates

• 6400 surveys sent out at each stage

• Baseline stage response rate = 37.7% (2412 responses)

• Stage 2 response rate = 30.7% (1977 responses)

• Stage 3 response rate = 31.2% (2022 responses)

Baseline results

• 49.9% normal weight, 36.3% overweight, and 13.8% obese

• 52.1% of males and 53.2% of females report doing more than 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity.

• Average age = 58 years

• Gender split = 63% females, 37% males

Thank you – any questions?

• Research presented here was conducted during an ESRC Studentship under its Capacity Building Clusters Award (RES-187-24-0002) in partnership with Active Devon.

• For more information about this project and the work of the Centre for Sport, Leisure and Tourism research, see www.ex.ac.uk/slt.

• Emma Solomon, es244@ex.ac.uk, 07899986841.

References

• Bauman, A. and Owen, N. (1999). Physical activity of adult Australians: epidemiological evidence and potential strategies for health gain. J Sci Med Sport, 2(1), 30-41.

• King, A.C. and Sallis, J.F. (2009). Why and how to improve physical activity promotion: Lessons from behavioral science and related fields. Preventive Medicine, 49(4): 286-288.

• Roth, M. (2009). Self-reported physical activity in adults. Health Survey for England 2008, Volume 1: Physical activity and fitness. R. Craig, J. Mindell and V. Hirani. London, National Centre for Social Research: 21-58.

• Wanless, D. (2004). Securing good health for the whole population: final report. London: HM Treasury.