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, UK
Physical 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 wants
2. Providing support to “kick start” activities
3. Supporting people within their communities to sustain the opportunities
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Engagement
Engagement
Engagement
Engagement
35 villages
35 villages
35 villages
35 villages
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
12 week
12 week
12 week
12 week
activities
activities
activities
activities
35 villages
35 villages
35 villages
35 villages
Dec-12
Nov-12
Oct-12
Sep-12
Aug-12
Jul-12
Jun-12
May-12
Apr-12
Mar-12
Feb-12
Jan-12
Dec-11
Nov-11
Oct-11
Sep-11
Aug-11
Jul-11
Jun-11
May-11
Apr-11
Mar-11
Feb-11
Jan-11
‘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 1
Baseline
Survey
Stage 2
Survey
Stage 3
Survey
Stage 4
Survey
Stage 5
Survey
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
• Average age = 58 years
• Gender split = 63% females, 37% males
• 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.
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.