MOVING physical activity policy benchmarking tool

Monitoring and benchmarking a government’s physical activity policies is important for assessing progress on how a government promotes physical activity, which is a key risk factor for cancer and other non-communicable diseases. As well as helping to prevent obesity, physical activity also reduces the risk of certain cancers and has many wider health benefits.

The MOVING benchmarking tool was developed as part of the CO-CREATE project to assess national government policy actions on physical activity.

The tool is designed to hold governments accountable to a higher, aspirational standard, rather than simply compare governments with other countries and with current best practices. The tool was developed following a review of the literature and an extensive consultation with experts such as policymakers, researchers and civil society, including youth representatives.

What is meant by aspirational standards?

The tools assess national government policy actions with reference to evidence-based, aspirational standards, which is a novel approach compared with existing instruments which compare countries with each other. This approach holds countries to a higher standard than best practice comparisons.

Existing tools use best practice examples, which hold countries to a lower standard and potentially limit demands on governments to innovate and improve. Aspirational criteria hold countries to a higher standard, starting from the premise that current practice is insufficient; this is aimed at encouraging further policy development.

Using the benchmarking tool, we assessed the status of national physical activity policy in 30 European countries. You can read the results of our assessment in our MOVING policy index brief.

The CO-CREATE project identified the need for an easy-to-use tool to assess both nutrition and physical activity policies that applies aspirational standards to assess national government action in these policy areas. We’ve developed the associated NOURISHING benchmarking tool for nutrition policy.

The tool is part of a package of resources that World Cancer Research Fund International has produced to help reduce cancer and NCDs as part of the CO-CREATE project. The package also includes a policy framework and database, collectively known as MOVING.

The CO-CREATE project ran from 2018–23 and was an EU-funded, youth-led project to reduce child and adolescent obesity in Europe. Although the project has ended, many of the outputs and resources from it continue to be useful to governments and advocates around the world.

> Read more about the tool and its development in Obesity Reviews

About the tool

The MOVING policy benchmarking tool assesses government policies through:

• Policy areas: These are categories within the MOVING framework, for example, physical education in schools.
• Benchmarks: specific standards within each policy area.
• Indicators: statements reflecting the level of government support for each benchmark.
• Aspirational policy attributes: criteria for evaluating the quality of policy design.
• Coding scheme: a method for scoring the indicators based on their attributes.

Each policy area, such as physical activity in schools, the community and sport, and recreation, is allocated several benchmarks, such as physical activity in schools and PE; physical activity in and outside of classrooms; physical activity outside of school hours; community and mass participation initiatives; and physical activity for people of all ages and abilities. Each benchmark is accompanied by an indicator in the form of a statement of government support, such as “National government supports schools to include physical education in school curricula”. The level of government support is then valued based on the policy attributes and the coding scheme.

The MOVING benchmarking tool includes 23 benchmarks (and associated indicators) across the 6 policy areas of the MOVING framework. The indicators are measured by 2 types of attributes:

• one attribute for the existence of a policy action (‘no’ = 0, ‘yes’ =50)
• a set of aspirational attributes on the quality of policy design (0-50)

> See the aspirational standards table (pdf)

What does the tool measure?

The MOVING benchmarking tool assesses the quality of policy design for national government policy actions to promote health-enhancing physical activity. It does not assess the level of policy implementation.

What does the tool assess?

This tool focuses on policy actions, defined as specific actions put in place by national–level governments and associated agencies to achieve a public health objective. Actions include measures taken by national governments to promote healthy diets and promote physical activity, for example, laws and regulations, programmatic interventions, and public information campaigns. Policy actions are thus the actual options selected by policymakers and are a part of public policy. All policy actions are part of public policy, but not all public policies are policy actions. For example, for the purposes of the benchmarking tools, plans and strategies are excluded.

Data and application

The MOVING benchmarking tool should be applied on a complete dataset of physical activity policy actions taken by a national government, collected through a comprehensive scan methodology. The tool does not benchmark individual policies in isolation but considers the interaction between multiple policy actions. This holistic approach provides a more accurate assessment of government efforts to improve physical activity.

> Read our comprehensive scan methodology

Limitations

The tool has some limitations:

• It only includes national-level policies, excluding regional or local government actions – it should be recognised that there is significant physical activity policy making at a local level.
• The tools focus on policy actions and exclude other types of policy such as plans or strategies.
• It focuses on policy design rather than implementation.
• It does not weight policies by likely impact on population health.

Despite these limitations, the tool provides valuable insights into the quality of national physical activity policies and encourages accountability and policy learning among countries.

Use in different settings

While the tool is currently applied to European countries, it can be adapted for use in other regions with a comprehensive dataset.

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 774210. This content reflects only the authors’ views and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.