A community-wide campaign to promote physical activity in middle-aged and elderly people: a cluster randomized controlled trial

Abstract

BackgroundWe aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-wide campaign (CWC) for promoting physical activity in middle-aged and elderly people.MethodsA cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a community as the unit of randomization was performed using a population-based random-sampled evaluation by self-administered questionnaires in the city of Unnan, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The evaluation sample included 6000 residents aged 40 to 79 years. We randomly allocated nine communities to the intervention group and three to the control group. The intervention was a CWC from 2009 to 2010 to promote physical activity, and it comprised information, education, and support delivery. The primary outcome was a change in engaging in regular aerobic, flexibility, and/or muscle-strengthening activities evaluated at the individual level.ResultsIn total, 4414 residents aged 40–79 years responded to a self-administered questionnaire (73.6% response rate). Awareness of the CWC was 79% in the intervention group. Awareness and knowledge were significantly different between the intervention and control groups, although there were no significant differences in belief and intention. The 1-year CWC did not significantly promote the recommended level of physical activity (adjusted odds ratio: 0.97; 95% confidence interval: 0.84–1.14).ConclusionsThis cluster RCT showed that the CWC did not promote physical activity in 1 year. Significant differences were observed in awareness and knowledge between intervention and control groups as short-term impacts of the campaign.Trial registrationUMIN-CTR UMIN000002683

Association of low back and knee pain with falls in Japanese community‐dwelling older adults: A 3‐year prospective cohort study

“…14 In October 2009, invitation letters, consent forms and questionnaires were mailed to 6000 residents aged 40-79 years randomly selected from the city registry in Unnan City (population 43 520, area 553.4 km 2 ), a rural mountainous region in Shimane, Japan. From these, 3080 (51.3%) men and women aged 60-79 years were selected as participants for the present study; excluded were those participants in assisted living facilities, those who required long-term care and those who could not complete the questionnaires by themselves.…”

“…We prospectively evaluated observations from an ongoing community-based intervention study for communitylevel improvement in levels of physical activity. 14…”

Practice-Based Evidence in Public Health: Improving Reach, Relevance, and Results

“…Although groups of individuals are randomized in cluster RCTs, individual-level data collection and analysis are still possible if appropriate analytical techniques are used to account for data correlation (11,60,61). Many investigators have conducted cluster RCT studies in community-based settings (14,41). Indeed, cluster RCTs may be politically more feasible because, rather than randomizing individuals within a single community, no one in the treatment community is excluded from program participation.…”

Physical activity: a synopsis and comment on “community-wide interventions for increasing physical activity”

“…An encouraging trend noted by the reviewers is that many of the more recent studies [6,[12][13][14] were of higher quality, involved less bias, increased use of randomization and some use of wearable accelerometers to measure PA more objectively and accurately (as compared to self-report) [6]. However, even these high quality studies did not show that intervention increased PA within their community samples.…”