Evaluation of community-based physical activity programs

The rate of obesity has been rapidly increasing in many countries. Lack of physical activity is a key component to this increase. Changes in the structure and walkability of cities and towns and increased automation in the work and home environments have led to declining rates of daily energy expenditure. Recently, many states and countries have turned to social-ecological approaches, intervening at the environmental, social and individual level to combat the decline in energy expenditure. While these efforts hold much promise for increasing the levels of physical activity, they present unique challenges to evaluators. Many of these interventions involve a wide variety of channels including mass media, Internet, community events and school-based programs often occurring simultaneously. The size of these programs is also large encompassing cities, states and even nations making finding equivalent comparison groups difficult. With these challenges and the political and social pressures to demonstrate results from these programs, strong process, outcome and impact evaluations are needed.