- Building Health: Creating and enhancing places for healthy, active lives: What needs to be done?
Physical activity is essential to good health and helps prevent avoidable chronic diseases such as
coronary heart disease, diabetes, certain forms of cancer, and obesity. But our lifestyles are becoming
increasingly sedentary, and few Britons are active on a regular basis. Many transport and planning
policies unintentionally contribute to this problem by building barriers to physical activity – such
as prioritising cars before pedestrians and cyclists, and locating housing, shops, services and places
where people work in areas virtually inaccessible without a car.
Building Health provides a blueprint for national and local policymakers, as well as planners,
architects and transport professionals, on designing public spaces that make the option of physical
activity an easier and more attractive choice. The report includes two publications.
- Evaluating Sport and Physical Activity Interventions: A guide for practitioners
Sport England (North West Region) and the North West Regional Public Health Group have commissioned
this guide for practitioners. The guide addresses key issues that need to be considered when
evaluating the impact of interventions on sport and physical activity. The guide discusses principles
of good practice when designing evaluation programmes and tools which could be used. This guide could
be used as an aid when making decisions about evaluating physical activity and sport interventions.
The guide is aimed at sport and physical activity practitioners, manager and commissioners for Local
Authorities, PCTs, Sport and Physical Activity Alliances and County Sport Partnerships.
- General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPPAQ)
The General Practice Phyiscal Activity questionnaire will help GP's, Practice Nurses and other health
professionals to assess patients physical activity levels and enable the targetting of those at
greastest risk from inactive lifestyles. Once the patient has completed the questionnaire, appropriate
physical activity advice will be given to the patient along with details of opportunities to become
more active and links to the brief intervention programmes recommened by the NICE guidance published
earlier this year. It is not mandatory for health professionals to use this tool at present however it
is a validated tool for measuring activity levels of patients and as such the use of the tool is being
recommended to PCTs and health professionals.
- The British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity and Health Information Centre - Updates
The British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity and Health provide a monthly update
service through their website. The current and previous versions of the updates are available in
Microsoft Document (.doc) Format (older ones in PDF format).The updates outline all the latest
developments in the field and provide up to date physical activity news, information, research and
relevant funding opportunities.
- The British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity and Health: Physical Activity and Health Toolbox
The BHF National Centre for Physical Activity and Health has developed a Physical Activity and Health
Toolbox. The toolbox has been designed to support professionals in making the case for physical
activity and health. It includes a series of evidence-based user friendly fact sheets and accompanying
slides on key issues in sport, physical activity and health which can be adapted for use with different
audiences. The fact sheets and accompanying slides can be downloaded from the website and information
can be used in whatever format professionals deem appropriate, key facts and figures can be extracted
from the different documents and inserted into reports, presentations, letters, briefing documents,
etc.
- The Sport England Sport and Physical Activity Playing its Part in Choosing Health Resource - A Resource for Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts
The purpose of this resource is to help the health sector improve the planning, strategic placement,
partnerships, resource commitments and performance management of physical activity. The aim is that
commissioners and service providers such as Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and Primary Care Trusts
(PCTs) or Practice Based Commissioners (PBC) will use the resource as an aid to, supporting
partnerships, setting local targets and monitoring of physical activity levels. It will also be of
interest to local authorities who are working with partners to deliver physical activity particularly
through Local Area Agreements, including County Sport Partnerships and Community Sport Networks who
are working as part of the Delivery System for Sport to increase participation.
- National Child Measurement Programme
PAN-WM presentation on the National Child Measurement Programme.
- NICE and CfPS checklist to use when scrutinising how physical activity can be promoted through planning, transport, and the physical environment
NICE and the Centre for Public Scrutiny have recently launched a checklist of 10 questions that
should be asked when scrutinising how physical activity can be promoted through planning, transport
and the physical environment. This checklist has been developed following the publication of the
public health guidance on promoting and creating built or natural environments that encourage and
support physical activity, published by NICE in January 2008.
The guidance represents the first ever national, evidence-based recommendations on how to improve
the physical environment to encourage physical activity.
The recommendations made for the NHS and councils and all those who have a role or responsibility for
a built or natural environment. This includes planners, transport authorities, building managers,
designers and architects.
To complement the guidance, NICE and the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) have produced a checklist
of 10 questions. These are to help health overview and scrutiny committees (OSCs) look at how physical
activity can be promoted through planning, transport and the physical environment.
The guide is based on the recommendations made by NICE. It aims to help OSCs develop 10-year local
delivery frameworks (LDFs) that support efforts to increase the general population’s physical activity
levels.”
- Physical activity and the built environment
The annual cost of inactivity and obesity in England is over £10 billion. This CABE briefing highlights
opportunities for using the built environment – our streets and neighbourhoods, our parks and our
workplaces – to reduce this burden on our health service. If the government’s hope of transforming
the population into a fitter and more active nation are to be sustained beyond the 2012 Olympics it
is essential that we offer more opportunities for activity in our everyday life.
- National Healthy Schools Physical Activity Guidance Documents
Physical Activity is an integral part of daily life in a health-promoting school. The purpose of this
guidance is to offer support to schools working towards achieving National Healthy School Status and
demonstrate how Physical Activity can be promoted throughout the school day and beyond.
- NICE Recommendations
Four Commonly used methods to increase physical activity: brief interventions in primary care, exercise referral schemes, pedometers and community-based exercise programmes for walking and cycling.
- NICE Recommendations
Promoting and creating built or natural environments that encourage and support physical activity
- NICE Recommendations
Workplace Health Promotion: how to encourage employees to be physically active
- NICE Recommendations
Promoting physical activity, active play and sport for pre-school and school-age children and young people in family, pre-school, school and community settings