Citation

Ickes MJ, Wiggins A, Hahn EJ. Health Promot. Pract. 2018; ePub(ePub): 1524839918807449.

Affiliation

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Society for Public Health Education, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1524839918807449

PMID

30318919

Abstract

The purpose was to explore community readiness to adopt physical activity (PA) policies by adapting and pilot testing an online survey (Physical Activity Readiness Survey [PARS]). PARS was adapted from the previously tested Community Readiness Survey-Short. In February/April 2016, key informants ( N = 17) involved in PA activities from two rural communities were invited to complete the PARS, representing six dimensions: knowledge, leadership, resources, community climate, existing voluntary PA policies, and political climate. First, participants were asked to respond to a presurvey to screen for overall readiness for up to four evidence-based PA policies. A main survey readiness score (0-6) was determined by averaging the key informants' ratings across items: Raw scores were rescaled to range from 0 to 1, and dimension scores were summed. Participants identified two PA policies in the presurvey: neighborhood availability and point-of-decision prompts. For both policies, political climate had the highest dimension score (1.0) and the knowledge dimension scored lowest (0.05-0.38). Overall readiness scores ranged from 3.19 to 3.62, revealing the preparation stage for both policies. Readiness for the two PA policies were similar, but specific dimension scores varied by policy type and community, reinforcing the need for tailored interventions.

Language: en

Keywords

community assessment; health promotion; physical activity/exercise; program planning and evaluation