Physical activity and health at the population level - the role of international networks

Abstract

The first countries to develop comprehensive policy approaches to population based physical activity promotion in the modern sense were Finland and Canada. Other parts of the worlds saw comparable developments in countries or large metropolitan areas towards the end of the 20th century, examples are Australia, Sao Paulo in Brazil and Japan. The US Surgeon General's report on Physical Activity and Health of 1996 was a health policy document with important international repercussions. Around the same time, the World Healt h Organisation (WHO) began to integrate physical activity in its Active Living Strategy and a little later in its Global Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). In 2004, physical activity featured more prominently in the WHO's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. In the 2008-2013 Action Plan to WHO's NCD strategy, physical inactivity was for the first time explicitly and prominently named as one of the four main NCD risk factors. In 2010, WHO issued the first Global Recommendations for Physical Activity and Health, its role for global public health was confirmed in the 2011 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs. So physical activity is a relatively new concept in international public health. Many institutions can play an important role in physical activity promotion, but for most this is only one of their tasks amongst others. There are a limited number of organisations that focus on physical activity and health alone: the international physical activity promotion networks and the International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH). Agita Mundo, the Global Physical Activity Promotion Network, the four existing regional networks (RAFA/PANA, HEPA Europe, APPAN and AFPAN), ISPAH and its advocacy council GAPA work together not only in the dissemination of tools and information, but also in lobbying for physical activity as an important aspect of public health. Physical activity and health - from the individual to the global level