How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany

BACKGROUND: Physical activity recommendations are reached by only a small part of the population. A common problem is that research findings on public health-related topics such as physical activity promotion are oftentimes not translated into practice. The involvement of relevant stakeholders, such...

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Autores principales: Wolbring, Laura, Reimers, Anne Kerstin, Niessner, Claudia, Demetriou, Yolanda, Schmidt, Steffen Christian Ekkehard, Woll, Alexander, Wäsche, Hagen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8101134/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33957943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-021-00729-7
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author Wolbring, Laura
Reimers, Anne Kerstin
Niessner, Claudia
Demetriou, Yolanda
Schmidt, Steffen Christian Ekkehard
Woll, Alexander
Wäsche, Hagen
author_facet Wolbring, Laura
Reimers, Anne Kerstin
Niessner, Claudia
Demetriou, Yolanda
Schmidt, Steffen Christian Ekkehard
Woll, Alexander
Wäsche, Hagen
author_sort Wolbring, Laura
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Physical activity recommendations are reached by only a small part of the population. A common problem is that research findings on public health-related topics such as physical activity promotion are oftentimes not translated into practice. The involvement of relevant stakeholders, such as change agents (role models, decision-makers, and/or knowledge mediators), is a common strategy to implement physical activity recommendations in specific settings, as they have the necessary knowledge of contextual factors. However, dissemination and implementation of physical activity recommendations are often prevented by focusing exclusively on the health sector and by underestimating the individual perceptions and needs of change agents. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address the problem of how physical activity recommendations can be translated into practice through comprehensive consideration of the situation and context of change agents from various sectors of society at different administrative levels. This allows for deriving recommendations for action on how a national dissemination strategy of physical activity recommendations should be designed. METHODS: Qualitative expert interviews were conducted with change agents from different sectors of society and administrative levels in Germany (N = 21). Case selection took place via a sampling plan. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed by two trained researchers using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The change agents’ perceived relevance of physical activity and physical activity promotion and their knowledge of physical activity recommendations varied across different sectors. Nine themes were identified covering the change agents’ needs for the implementation of physical activity recommendations: strengthening of political will and cooperation, availability of public space for physical activity, change in awareness and health education, professional qualification, financial incentives, development of physical activity-promoting programmes and structures, provision of resources, bridging the theory–practice gap, and knowledge of physical activity recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: This exploratory study contributes to the development of an evidence-based dissemination strategy of physical activity recommendations involving change agents from various sectors. Cross-sectoral needs and obstacles were identified indicating gaps that have to be addressed. Future research should choose practice-oriented approaches to develop dissemination strategies that are adapted to the needs of local contexts. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12961-021-00729-7.
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spelling pubmed-81011342021-05-06 How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany Wolbring, Laura Reimers, Anne Kerstin Niessner, Claudia Demetriou, Yolanda Schmidt, Steffen Christian Ekkehard Woll, Alexander Wäsche, Hagen Health Res Policy Syst Research BACKGROUND: Physical activity recommendations are reached by only a small part of the population. A common problem is that research findings on public health-related topics such as physical activity promotion are oftentimes not translated into practice. The involvement of relevant stakeholders, such as change agents (role models, decision-makers, and/or knowledge mediators), is a common strategy to implement physical activity recommendations in specific settings, as they have the necessary knowledge of contextual factors. However, dissemination and implementation of physical activity recommendations are often prevented by focusing exclusively on the health sector and by underestimating the individual perceptions and needs of change agents. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address the problem of how physical activity recommendations can be translated into practice through comprehensive consideration of the situation and context of change agents from various sectors of society at different administrative levels. This allows for deriving recommendations for action on how a national dissemination strategy of physical activity recommendations should be designed. METHODS: Qualitative expert interviews were conducted with change agents from different sectors of society and administrative levels in Germany (N = 21). Case selection took place via a sampling plan. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed by two trained researchers using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The change agents’ perceived relevance of physical activity and physical activity promotion and their knowledge of physical activity recommendations varied across different sectors. Nine themes were identified covering the change agents’ needs for the implementation of physical activity recommendations: strengthening of political will and cooperation, availability of public space for physical activity, change in awareness and health education, professional qualification, financial incentives, development of physical activity-promoting programmes and structures, provision of resources, bridging the theory–practice gap, and knowledge of physical activity recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: This exploratory study contributes to the development of an evidence-based dissemination strategy of physical activity recommendations involving change agents from various sectors. Cross-sectoral needs and obstacles were identified indicating gaps that have to be addressed. Future research should choose practice-oriented approaches to develop dissemination strategies that are adapted to the needs of local contexts. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12961-021-00729-7. BioMed Central 2021-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8101134/ /pubmed/33957943 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-021-00729-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Wolbring, Laura
Reimers, Anne Kerstin
Niessner, Claudia
Demetriou, Yolanda
Schmidt, Steffen Christian Ekkehard
Woll, Alexander
Wäsche, Hagen
How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title_full How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title_fullStr How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title_full_unstemmed How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title_short How to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in Germany
title_sort how to disseminate national recommendations for physical activity: a qualitative analysis of critical change agents in germany
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8101134/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33957943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-021-00729-7
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