Sustaining Equality and Equity. A Scoping Review of Interventions Directed towards Promoting Access to Leisure Time Physical Activity for Children and Youth

Abstract

Promoting access to leisure time physical activity (LTPA) opportunities for children and youth is crucial to promote public health. Yet, ensuring sustainable interventions in this field requires theoretically informed approaches to guide the processes of developing, implementing and evaluating LTPA programs. The objective of this review was to examine how concepts of equality and equity have been operationalized in LTPA interventions for children and youth in order to identify facilitating factors and barriers to LTPA access connected to such concepts. Using a pre-piloted search strategy, three electronic databases were searched for studies of interventions aiming to promote access to LTPA in organized or community sport for children and youth. Following a screening process, 27 publications representing 25 unique interventions were included. Through careful examination of the aim and target group of each intervention, they emerged in three categories in accordance with their (implicit) understandings of equality and equity. Also, considering the processes through which the interventions within each category had been implemented leads to the conclusion that an explicit theoretical understanding of the aim of interventions will increase communal knowledge among intervention stakeholders about which facilitating factors to pursue and barriers to bypass to contribute to more socially sustainable LTPA programs.

Children’s Rights to and in Sport: A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Policies in the Scandinavian Countries

“…This is the case in the increasing number of studies describing the inequity in access to sports for children and youths and how inclusion in sporting communities may be promoted (cf. review by Hjort and Agergaard 2022). Recent studies have demonstrated that it is particularly children and youths from low socio-economic and minority ethnic backgrounds, along with disabled children and youths, that do not have access to sport to the same extent as other children and youths (Andersen and Bakken 2018;Elofsson et al 2019;Rask et al 2020;Strandbu et al 2019;Strandbu and Bakken 2024).…”

Strategies to Improve Physical Activity and Nutrition Behaviours in Children and Adolescents: A Review

“…Reducing structural inequality in sport requires more than just money [121], a sustainable whole-of-system approach must be adopted to allow schools, policymakers, and parents to work together to improve youth engagement in sport. Recent literature exemplifies how 'locally owned' community sport interventions are particularly efficacious in empowering youth and transcending several societal inequities related to PA [124]. From the point of view of children and adolescents, it is important to note that sport provides them invaluable opportunities for civic engagement, improvement of cognitive/emotional functioning and subsequently, improved physical and psychological well-being [125], along with opportunities to break down cultural barriers, build community identity, establish friendships, develop networks, and reduce social isolation [126].…”

Rethinking the Vulnerability of Groups Targeted in Health-Promoting Sports and Physical Activity Programs

“…A similar range of approaches has been described in relation to sports programs for adolescents, distinguishing between the universal equality approach directed towards promoting sports participation among large groups of adolescents, and the more specific targeted equity approach, which focuses on making sports accessible for the adolescents that need the most help (Hjort and Agergaard 2022). Yet, to our knowledge, no publications have set out to reconceptualize vulnerability to develop encompassing descriptions and adequate support to participants in health-promoting programs that offer physical activity and sport.…”