BJSM social media contributes to health policy rethink: a physical activity success story in Hertfordshire

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Abstract

Strategies to modernise the National Health Service (NHS) in England have brought about the development of local organisations called Health and Wellbeing (H&WB) boards through the Health and Social Care Act 2012. These boards were intended to become a forum where key leaders and stakeholders from health and care systems work together to improve the health and well-being of their local population and reduce health inequalities. Throughout England these boards have been drafting their strategies, largely ignoring the importance of physical activity in health and well-being. In the county of Hertfordshire, the initial draft priorities were released in 2012 and physical activity promotion was not included. Using a BJSM blog, BJSM online poll, Twitter and email, an attempt was made to generate as much interest and formal feedback as possible to the draft strategy, in order to ensure the inclusion of physical activity as a priority in the revised strategy.

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Most cited references 7

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The pandemic of physical inactivity: global action for public health.

Harold Kohl, Cora Lynn Craig, Estelle Lambert … (2012)

Physical inactivity is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. We summarise present global efforts to counteract this problem and point the way forward to address the pandemic of physical inactivity. Although evidence for the benefits of physical activity for health has been available since the 1950s, promotion to improve the health of populations has lagged in relation to the available evidence and has only recently developed an identifiable infrastructure, including efforts in planning, policy, leadership and advocacy, workforce training and development, and monitoring and surveillance. The reasons for this late start are myriad, multifactorial, and complex. This infrastructure should continue to be formed, intersectoral approaches are essential to advance, and advocacy remains a key pillar. Although there is a need to build global capacity based on the present foundations, a systems approach that focuses on populations and the complex interactions among the correlates of physical inactivity, rather than solely a behavioural science approach focusing on individuals, is the way forward to increase physical activity worldwide.