A framework to increase physical activity in County Durham (2016-2021)

Start, Stay and Succeed A framework to increase physical activity in County Durham (2016-2021)

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Start, Stay and Succeed

Why physical activity?

There is compelling evidence that physical activity helps people to lead healthier and happier lives.

There are benefits in taking part in physical activity for its own sake, but there are much

wider benefits that an active life can bring to both the individual and wider society, in terms of physical and mental wellbeing, community and economic development.

Encouraging people to be active is important to County Durham, and contributes to County Durham’s wider priorities.

Figure 1. Physical Activity

Increases the feeling of wellbeing

Reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke by 30%

Reduces workplace sickness by 27%

Active Improves students earn educational an average attainment 18% more per year, by 12.7% than inactive counterparts

Altogether Wealthier

Reduces the risk of depression and dementia by 30%

Reduces risk of breast and colon cancer by 20-24%

Reduces the risk of anti-social behaviour and crime by 15.8%

Reduces an individual’s carbon footprint by 86kg per year, if 2km walked per week.

Altogether Healthier

Altogether Safer

Altogether Better for Children and Young People

Altogether Greener

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Physical activity in County Durham In 2015, an audit of the success and strengths of many partners, across all sectors, identified that there is great enthusiasm and commitment in encouraging both individuals and communities to be more active.

A recent national study into the social return on investment of sport and physical activity across all sectors, identifies that for every £1 of investment, £1.91 worth of benefits were generated in health, education and social outcomes.

However, engagement and participation in physical activity is still too low across all age ranges and all geographical areas.

County Durham lags behind the regional and national averages, and there is still much more to do to reap the benefits of a more active County Durham.

In 2015, 32.1% of County Durham’s adult population were classified as inactive (less than 30 mins each week) against a national average of 27.7%.

32.1% 27.7% County Durham

National Average

In 2015, 44.5% fail to meet recommended levels of physical activity in County Durham, with a national average of 43%.

44.5% County Durham

There are currently no direct physical activity measures for children and young people, but as an indicator the measures for excess weight provide a challenging picture for County Durham.

At ages 4-5, the excess weight level is 23% and the national average is 21.9%.

At ages 10-11, the excess weight level in County Durham is 36.5% and the national average is 33.2%.

36.5% 33.2% County Durham

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43%

National Average

National Average

Start, Stay and Succeed

Why a physical activity framework?

The statistics show that County Durham has too few sufficiently active people despite having a beautiful landscape, developed physical infrastructure and a history of committed people engaging communities to be more active.

Inactivity is leading to an epidemic in physical and mental health conditions, creating an unsustainable economic burden on County Durham. It is also preventing generations and communities from enjoying the wider outcomes and benefits that an active life provides fun, friends, inclusion and more.

Public Health England estimates show that the annual health, social and economic cost of physical inactivity is in excess of ÂŁ100 million* in County Durham. *Public Health England

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Start, Stay and Succeed

Physical activity is never too late Research shows that it is never too late to become physically active; by helping people to increase physical activity each day, in small steps, alone or in groups, as an individual or a key partner, we can all make a significant contribution to reversing the current trends.

During extensive County Durham wide consultation in 2015 and 2016, there was overwhelming support and enthusiasm for a coordinated approach to raising physical activity levels for all ages. Expertise from a range of areas including health, education, the environment, community safety and the economy, (representing the public, private and voluntary sectors), all saw the benefit of a new framework.

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This framework is designed for strategic and local partners across County Durham who wish to help residents become more active.

This joint physical activity framework will harness the enthusiasm of partners (large and small) to make the most of all County Durham’s resources and assets, both physical and human, to increase physical activity levels.

So what is physical activity?

Physical activity is a broad term that includes any kind of movement that raises the heart rate and so helps to improve mental and physical wellbeing.

The World Health Organisation defines physical activity as ‘any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure’.

Start, Stay and Succeed

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What are we trying to achieve?

We want everyone in County Durham to aspire to achieving the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) recommendations for physical activity, and in doing so enjoy the wider outcomes from an active life. This means focused work to help those who are inactive to start, and equally work to support those already active to ‘stay’ and increase their levels of activity.

The CMO’s recommendations on physical activity: · Everyone to minimise the amount of time spent sitting and to maximise opportunities for physical activity.

180 minutes

60

minutes

150 minutes

· Every child under 5 who can walk unaided to be physically active for at least 180 minutes throughout each day, including movement of all the major muscle groups. · Every child aged 5-18 to engage in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day, including undertaking activities that strengthen muscle and bone. · Every adult (including older adults 65+) to undertake 150 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity per week, in bouts of 10 minutes or more, with physical activity to improve muscle strength on at least two of these days.

Achieving the recommendations will require us all to share best practice and apply the principles of behaviour change as outlined

by Sport England’s strategy Towards an Active Nation (2016-2021).

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Changing behaviour The challenges of reaching out to everyone to achieve the recommended levels of physical activity are significant.

Whilst we must understand the behaviour

change model at the individual level, we must also understand how we can have wide spread influence to change the way communities behave and create a more Active Durham by connecting the home, school, workplace, healthcare and wider communities.

Figure 2. Behaviour Change

Not on my radar

Pre-contemplation

Thinking about it

Contemplation

Planning to do something soon

Preparation

Getting started

Action

Sticking with it

Maintenance

Five key stages of behaviour, people can move back and forth through these stages.

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How will we achieve change?

Our vision is:

Active Durham has established a model to guide the work over the coming years. It looks at the key outcomes and what we need to work on together to succeed in increasing physical activity towards the CMO’s recommendations.

What are enablers?

Enablers are ‘pre-conditions’ for the achievement of the vision. The enablers need to be considered when supporting people and communities, to change or sustain behaviour, and therefore to ‘start, stay and succeed’. Failure to address the enablers will reduce the effectiveness of achieving the vision.

To encourage people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, to ‘Start, Stay and Succeed’ in their endeavours to be more physically active and in doing so, contribute to the county’s wider strategic outcomes.

Figure 3. The diagram below illustrates the key components of the framework

Enablers

Leadership & Governance

An evidence based approach

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Collaboration Empowered individuals & communities

Opportunities to participate through: Natural environment

An enhanced workforce

Built environment (indoor & outdoor) Programmed activity

Start, Stay and Succeed

Vision

Start

Stay

Succeed

More people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to ‘start, stay and succeed’ in their endeavours to be more physically active

County outcomes

Altogether Healthier Altogether Better for Children & Young People Altogether Wealthier Altogether Safer Altogether Greener

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Start, Stay and Succeed

Achieving start, stay and succeed

Groups in society less likely to be active

Helping people to start is where the gains for the individual and society are the greatest, but equally where they are most resource intensive.

· people from a lower socio economic group

Evidence says we don’t need to tell people that physical activity is good for them, but we do need to be smarter at supporting and encouraging people to become active; a customer first approach.

· older people

We need to ensure easy, practical, attractive choices are available so that being active is part of everyone’s everyday life.

Whilst anyone can be inactive, there are some groups in society who are less likely to take part regularly.

· women and girls

· disabled people · people from particular ethnic groups · those with a long term health condition.

We need to understand and meet the needs of the under-represented groups when planning physical activity. We will need to assign greater resource to gather insight, engage specific communities, work with new partners and develop the appropriate workforce solutions.

Whilst respecting people as individuals, we need to ensure that we tackle inactivity at scale, if we are to halt the pending epidemic in lifestyle conditions.

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We must focus on the inactive, but there also needs to be capacity and support to ensure people stay active whatever the barriers throughout life. We must adapt and respond to people’s changing expectations as they grow older; and how people now organise their lives, to prevent ‘drop out’.

Who will guide the work in the framework?

The framework will guide our workforce, clubs, schools, colleges and workplaces to provide the right environment and offer, to help individuals to stay active; to ‘stick with it’ and ‘maintain’ regular activity in behaviour change terms (Figure 2).

Active Durham, a newly formed partnership, will engage organisations from across County Durham who want to help improve physical activity levels.

Finally, achieving goals and feeling good is as important to the beginner as it is to the aspiring champion. We need to celebrate success and provide support, reward and motivation to everyone, at all levels and stages of their life journey.

We need a culture of sharing positive stories on all levels every day; celebrating individual successes, organisational success and indeed success of delivering this framework together.

All elements of our vision are important, but the framework recognises that some may need more resource input than others.

Collaboration is at the heart of the framework so it is important that we have a partnership approach, which includes both formal and informal mechanisms to engage partners.

Active Durham, with representation from key partners with wide ranging expertise, will meet to lead the work in taking forward the framework. Led by an independent chair, Active Durham will develop an action plan and will establish working groups to progress the plan.

Active Durham will connect to the wider County Durham Partnership, with an annual AGM and annual report to the Health and Wellbeing Board, covering progress against the framework and celebrating success. In addition, recognising that improving physical activity is a cross cutting issue, Active Durham will regularly update all the Altogether Better partnership boards.

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Start, Stay and Succeed

How will we measure success?

Children

This framework emphasises the importance of an evidence based approach to increasing physical activity across the county and meeting the CMO recommendations detailed on page 7.

Data collection at national and local levels for children has been inconsistent. The challenge in establishing current participation levels is recognised nationally and there is work in progress to address this issue. A new selfreported measure for 5-14 year olds is due to be collected from 2017 by Sport England, as part of the Active Lives survey work.

An important part of this is understanding the county’s current picture of activity levels and setting ambitious targets.

Adults There has been a strong history of adult participation data collection by Sport England, through a national, self-reporting survey, previously called Active People, and now renamed Active Lives. The questions now asked of adults, through national sampling, match well with this framework’s broad definition of physical activity and the CMO recommendations. The 1000 strong sample across County Durham, is independently collected and offers statistically significant data.

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In the meantime, Active Durham partners have agreed to specifically track the only universally available children’s physical activity related measure. This is in respect of child obesity data which is collected for every child nationally, at reception (ages 4/5) and year 6 (ages 10/11).

In the absence of a consistent direct children’s physical activity measure until 2017 it will provide a useful indicator of progress whilst recognising the limitations of this approach.

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Start, Stay and Succeed

By 2021, Active Durham will be an established network of partners working together to promote and support increased physical activity.

Whatever role individuals have in physical activity, together we will have encouraged more people to increase their physical activity levels, bringing wide ranging benefits to individuals and wider society.

Active Durham will have encouraged a more evidenced based approach throughout County Durham and ensured that individuals and communities are empowered to change their behaviour.

We will have evaluated ‘what works’ and will continue working towards the vision of a truly Active Durham, in which individuals of all ages, backgrounds and abilities can Start, Stay and Succeed.

A planned approach to supporting a workforce will be in place, which can truly transform participation in physical activity from inspiring the youngest to supporting the elderly.

Active Durham hopes all partners will work towards the following numerical targets by 2021:

What will success look like in 2021?

10,000 more adults who undertake 150 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity per week.

15,000 less adults who are inactive (undertake less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week).

No more than 1339 children aged 4/5 classified as overweight or obese.

No more than 1879 children aged 10/11 classified as overweight or obese.

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For more information info@activedurham.org.uk activedurham.org.uk