Abstract
STUDY OBJECTIVE—To assess the impact of a national campaign on awareness of the campaign, change in knowledge of physical activity recommendations and self reported physical activity. DESIGN—three year prospective longitudinal survey using a multi-stage, cluster random probability design to select participants. SETTING—England. PARTICIPANTS—A nationally representative sample of 3189 adults aged 16-74 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES—Awareness of the advertising element of the campaign, changes in knowledge of physical activity recommendations for health and self reported physical activity. RESULTS—38% of participants were aware of the main advertising images, assessed six to eight months after the main television advertisement. The proportion of participants knowledgeable about moderate physical activity recommendations increased by 3.0% (95% CI: 1.4%, 4.5%) between waves 1 and 2 and 3.7% (95% CI: 2.1%, 5.3%) between waves 1 and 3. The change in proportion of active people between baseline and waves 1 and 2 was −0.02 (95% CI: −2.0 to +1.7) and between waves 1 and 3 was −9.8 (−7.9 to −11.7). CONCLUSION—The proportion of participants who were knowledgeable about the new recommendations, increased significantly after the campaign. There was however, no significant difference in knowledge by awareness of the main campaign advertisement. There is no evidence that ACTIVE for LIFE improved physical activity, either overall or in any subgroup. Keywords: exercise; mass media; follow up studies; health promotion; physical activity
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (139.6 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Cavill N. National campaigns to promote physical activity: can they make a difference? Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1998 Aug;22 (Suppl 2):S48–S51. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- MORRIS J. N., HEADY J. A., RAFFLE P. A., ROBERTS C. G., PARKS J. W. Coronary heart-disease and physical activity of work. Lancet. 1953 Nov 28;265(6796):1111–concl. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(53)91495-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Owen N., Bauman A., Booth M., Oldenburg B., Magnus P. Serial mass-media campaigns to promote physical activity: reinforcing or redundant? Am J Public Health. 1995 Feb;85(2):244–248. doi: 10.2105/ajph.85.2.244. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Pate R. R., Pratt M., Blair S. N., Haskell W. L., Macera C. A., Bouchard C., Buchner D., Ettinger W., Heath G. W., King A. C. Physical activity and public health. A recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine. JAMA. 1995 Feb 1;273(5):402–407. doi: 10.1001/jama.273.5.402. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Sallis J. F., Bauman A., Pratt M. Environmental and policy interventions to promote physical activity. Am J Prev Med. 1998 Nov;15(4):379–397. doi: 10.1016/s0749-3797(98)00076-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]