Utilisation Situation of Physical Activity Guidelines in Policy Development and Implementation in Municipalities

Background: It is recognised that the existence of guidelines alone is unlikely to lead to changes in health behaviours at the population level. It is necessary to provide adequate information to influence a wide range of policies and practices.
Purpose: To compare the material including policy documents and physical activity guidelines, used in the development and implementation of physical activity policies in Japanese municipalities by administrative departments and municipality population size.
Methods: We conducted this study as a part of C-PAT (City PAT) study which aimed to understand the situation of physical activity policies in municipalities (Oida et al. 2024). This included 272 cities, wards, towns, and villages in Japan. Six administrative departments (health, sports, education, urban planning, transport, and environment) were asked to conduct the survey. The survey items of this study were ‘status of formulation and implementation of policies’ and ‘policy documents and material referred to’.
Results: The response rate to the C-PAT was 37.7%. The results showed that the most common documents referred to when formulating policies were the national plans of administrative departments. Only 20.4% of the health department respondents indicated that they referred to Japan’s national physical activity guidelines. Reference rates were 2.5% in the sports department, 0% in the education department, 1.5% in the urban planning department, 2.5% in the transport department, and 0% in the environment department. Smaller population sizes tended to result in less use of documentary material.
Conclusions: In the 2018 survey, the rate at which Japan’s physical activity guidelines are being used in the development and implementation of municipal physical activity policies was low.
Practical implications: Revised guidelines were released in Japan in 2023. This study showed that increased awareness of these guidelines for local government physical activity related departments is needed.
Funding: JSPS KAKENHI (JP17K01806)