The Most Effective Ways Of Promoting Physical Exercise For Adults

Pedometers and mass media campaigns are the most cost-effective ways to promote exercise among adults, according a study in Australia.

Considered as a package, researchers at the University of Queensland also conclude that six methods of intervention could reduce death and illness from heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes in Australia, with an overall cost saving for the health sector.

The World Health Organisation recommends at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity – which could just be brisk walking – five times per week.

Linda Cobiac and colleagues at the University of Queensland reviewed the medical literature to identify a range of interventions to promote physical activity and transport use in adults, which had evidence of effectiveness and which were suitable programs to implement in Australia. They then calculated the cost-effectiveness of six interventions. 

These included:

- TravelSmart – a program that targeted households in Australia with information about walking paths, bus timetables, and offered incentives to reduce reliance on the car

- general practitioners (GPs): the standard practice amongst GPs in Australia to screen and prescribe physical activity to inactive patients who visit them, as well as the practice of GPs referring patients to counselling sessions with an exercise physiologist at their local general practice

- Internet advice on physical activity

- the promotion of pedometers in the community

- and a mass media campaign that promoted physical activity and community events and activities.

To assess cost-effectiveness of different physical activity programs that are suitable in an Australian context, the researchers were able to compare these six interventions. They calculated the health outcomes of each intervention in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) – the number of healthy years of life lost as a result of premature death or illness – through already published data on how physical activity causes heart disease, stroke, colon and breast cancer, and diabetes. 

Offsetting the financial cost of each intervention against the number of years of death or injury (or DALYs) that the intervention averted, they concluded that the program promoting the pedometer as a motivational tool for physical exercise and the mass media campaign were the most cost-effective. 

The GP practice of referring patients to an exercise physiologist was the least cost-effective, especially if time and travel costs were considered.

Only the pedometer program and the mass media campaign of the six interventions resulted in an overall cost-saving, but the researchers stress that if the six interventions are considered together "it is likely that the package of interventions would not only be cost-effective by very likely cost-saving to the health sector." 

Source: Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713201433.htm