What is it about?
The current literature highlights a gap between the development of effective interventions to promote physical activity and their systematic uptake in real-world settings. The Irish Physical Activity Research Collaboration identified a need to identify the factors that impact implementation and scale-up of physical activity intervention within the Irish context. To achieve this, we interviewed 38 people who were involved with the delivery, coordination, funding, political support or research of 11 different physical activity interventions across the island of Ireland. This research captures the different perspectives of participants and presents the key factors identified as impacting implementation and scale-up of physical activity interventions in Ireland. Factors identified related to 5 common themes, including 1) intervention planning, 2) intervention delivery, 3) intervention reflection and evaluation, 4) intervention scale-up, and 5) commitment, engagement and support.
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Why is it important?
The physical, mental, social and economic benefits of engaging in recommended levels of physical activity are well documented. However, despite the development of interventions to promote physical activity, global estimates show that about 1 in 4 adults and more than three-quarters of adolescents do not meet the recommendations. This work aims to help stakeholders understand what factors are important for the effective implementation and scale up of physical activity interventions. This increased understanding can aid the successful uptake of physical activity interventions into real-world settings. The learnings are specific to the Irish context but the findings can also be useful for stakeholders implementing physical activity interventions in different countries.
Perspectives
I'm excited to be able to share the learnings from speaking with stakeholders who have a wealth of experience with implementing physical activity interventions across the island of Ireland. I believe working collectively to understand and share important strategies to overcome challenges for effective implementation can have a positive impact on future population levels of physical activity. I hope this work will inspire others to understand the factors that are important for the effective implementation and share their learnings with others. The findings generated through this research definitely make leading this work highly rewarding. As a final note, I would like to thank my co-authors and the participants who were extremely willing to share their knowledge to help form the findings of this work.
Dr Joey Murphy
University of Bristol
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Factors related to the implementation and scale-up of physical activity interventions in Ireland: a qualitative study with policy makers, funders, researchers and practitioners, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, February 2023, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1186/s12966-023-01413-5.
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Resources
I-PARC website
You can find more I-PARC activities and outputs in this link.
Barriers and facilitators to implementing community-based physical activity interventions: a qualitative systematic review
This is an earlier publication from the I-PARC team that informed this work. Here you can find more information about the barriers and facilitators to implementing community-based physical activity interventions.
Contributors
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