Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32346500›Full record

ReviewPreventive medicine reports2020

What are effective policies for promoting physical activity? A systematic review of reviews.

Peter Gelius, Sven Messing, Lee Goodwin, Diana Schow, Karim Abu-Omar

Abstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Preventive medicine reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
60citing papers in PubMed, 11 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

60 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. The impact of public policy on socioeconomic equity in physical activity: a systematic review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026
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  8. The impact of interventions in the built environment on physical activity levels: a systematic umbrella review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Peter GeliusFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Gebbertstraße 123b, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Sven MessingFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Gebbertstraße 123b, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Lee GoodwinFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Gebbertstraße 123b, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Diana SchowFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Gebbertstraße 123b, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Karim Abu-OmarFriedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Gebbertstraße 123b, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The importance of policy for promoting physical activity (PA) is increasingly recognized by academics, and there is a push by national governments and international institutions for PA policy development and monitoring. However, our knowledge about which policies are actually effective to promote PA remains limited. This article summarizes the currently available evidence by reviewing existing reviews on the subject. Building on results from a previous scoping review on different types of PA-related evidence, we ran searches for combinations of the terms "physical activity", "evidence", "effect", "review", and "policy" in six different databases (PubMed, Scopus, SportDiscus, PsycInfo, ERIC, and IBSS). We used EPPI Reviewer 4 to further process the results and conduct an in-depth analysis. We identified 57 reviews providing evidence on 53 types of policies and seven broader groups of policies. Reviews fell into four main categories: 1) setting- and target group-specific; 2) urban design, environment and transport; 3) economic instruments; and 4) broad-range perspective. Results indicate that there is solid evidence for policy effectiveness in some areas (esp. school-based and infrastructural policies) but that the evidence in other areas is insufficient (esp. for economic policies). The available evidence provides some guidance for policy-makers regarding which policies can currently be recommended as effective. However, results also highlight some broader epistemological issues deriving from the current research. This includes the conflation of PA policies and PA interventions, the lack of appropriate tools for benchmarking individual policies, and the need to critically revisit research methodologies for collating evidence on policies.

Indexed as

EffectivenessEvidenceHealth policyPhysical activityPolicyPublic healthReview

Identifiers

PMID32346500
PMCPMC7182760

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.