Applying physical activity measures in practice – ‘a reality check’

Michael Firek Community Health and Fitness Officer

Active Northumberland

• Northumberland based leisure, culture and heritage charitable trust

• 12 leisure centres

• Large exercise on referral scheme

• Community based sports development offer

• Also libraries, arts, culture and tourism development

Proving the case for leisure services

• In order to sustain our business in times of austerity, where leisure is a non statuary service, we want to prove that

Leisure is an important public health intervention regardless of whether it is through a targeted approach or general provision of facilities and opportunities for participation in physical activity

The Northumberland approach to physical activity monitoring

Northumberland Lifestyle Survey

• Undertaken in Oct/Nov 2014 to be repeated every 3 years

• 3,323 face to face interviews conducted (margin of

error of +/-1.69% at 95% confidence level). Approx. 1% of population

• Aimed to understand physical inactivity so that plan can be developed to address this

• Very expensive

Physical inactivity key results

• 32% did 0 x 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week

• 65% did 0 x 30 minutes of sport per week

• 27% of those who were inactive said they would like to be more active

• 20% didn’t know if they wanted to be more active

Physical inactivity key results• Those under 44 were significantly more likely to want to be more

active

16-14 52%

25-34 50%

35-44 42%

• 35% said that they would like to do more sport or physical activity over the next 12 months.

• The top activities that they would like to participate in include • swimming 25% • gym sessions 25%• walking 21% • cycling 15%• keep fit, yoga and Pilates 10%• running 9%

Barriers and Motivators

Barriers % Motivators %

Time 26% Improved health 24%

Poor health 12% Improved fitness 18%

Cost 10% Weight loss 17%

Age 9% Enjoyment 12%

Tiredness 9% Tone up / change shape 8%

Lack of interest 9%

Use of self report questionnaires• Used in targeted interventions

• Godin leisure time exercise questionnaire used in exercise on referral pre-scheme, post scheme and 52 weeks

• 93% participants complete at one to one appointments pre and post scheme

• Postal at 52 weeks (44.7% response from scheme completers)

Changes in self reported moderate physical activity

No of questionnaires

completed

Pre-scheme 24 weeks 52 weeks Self reported change in

activity

2776 57.4 min 95.2 min 37.8 min

1241 61.1 min 100.9 min 85.8 min 24.7 min

• Expectation of monitoring in a health related scheme versus difficulty of completion with other users of services make this type of wider monitoring challenging

• Is it needed if we are trying to make a case for our leisure services?

Wearable technology

• Fitlinxx pebble

• Have used this for the first time in monitoring physical activity within a weight loss intervention

• Available to customers as part of the gym offer in some sites

• We have access to step and time data from this but we don’t use it yet

• Need to better understand accuracy

What are we doing with the data?

• Develop a targeted approach to increasing physical activity amongst the least active based on survey results

• Develop a communications strategy based on promoting perceived motivators

• Revised pricing and concession offer in leisure centres to reduce the cost barrier

• Using data from interventions to build a case for continuation and to inform practice

Next steps

• Continue with Lifestyle survey at three yearly intervals

• Increased usage of wearable technology within interventions for more accurate monitoring

• Technogym wellness system in all gyms over next five years

• Development of a website based ‘access to activity portal’ to promote wider logging of activity

Please ask any questions

Thank you