Establishing robust policies to promote physical activity in primary healthcare

The Building Momentum series takes the lessons learned from governments who have implemented evidence-informed policies and collates them with published literature to succinctly outline how to design and implement a robust policy.

Physical activity plays a vital role in promoting and maintaining good physical and mental health, but too many individuals are not meeting recommendations. Policies that support physical activity promotion within primary healthcare settings are a key tenet of a comprehensive, systems-wide approach to increase physical activity, and help prevent and manage many non-communicable diseases, including cancers.

The 4th Building Momentum report sets out the emerging evidence for the benefits of promoting physical activity in primary healthcare, and explains why designing and enacting such policies is good for individual health and economies.

> Download the report and report summary

This is the 1st report of its kind, offering a global policy perspective on developments and progress, as well as guidance on foundational policy processes and components.

The report draws strongly on the experience of developing and implementing physical activity promotion policy from experts from several countries. Supplementary annexes provide additional information to support the main report:

• Annex 1 provides detailed snapshots of the policy state of play in World Cancer Research Fund International’s network countries: the Netherlands, the US and the UK (England, Scotland and Wales).
  Annex 2 provides an overview of international policy recommendations.
  Annex 3 covers a broad typology of ways in which policy may be implemented in practice.

We have also produced 3 reports that focus on diet-related policy:

• Restrictions of food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing to children (2020)
• A robust front of pack label (2019)
• A sugar sweetened beverage tax (2018)

Policymakers, academics and advocates from around the world are interviewed to inform the series, providing essential guidance on how to overcome common barriers and challenges in the policy process.

Policymakers face increasing barriers and challenges to introducing and implementing such policies, and this research seeks to establish ways to help policymakers overcome these barriers and challenges.