National level promotion of physical activity: results from England's ACTIVE for LIFE campaign

Study objective-To assess the impact of a national campaign on awareness of the campaign, change in knowledge of physical activity recommendations and self reported physical activity. Design-three year prospective longitudinal survey using a multi-stage, clus ter random probability design to select participants. Setting England. Participants-A nationally representative sample of 3189 adults aged 16-74 y ears. Main outcome measures-Awareness of the advertising element of the campaign, changes in knowledge of physical activity recommendations for health and s elf reported physical activity. Results-38% of participants were aware of the main advertising images, asse ssed six to eight months after the main television advertisement. The propo rtion of participants knowledgeable about moderate physical activity recomm endations increased by 3.0% (95% CI: 1.4%, 4.5%) between waves I and 2 and 3.7% (95% CI: 2.1%, 5.3%) between waves I and 3. The change in proportion o f active people between baseline and waves I and 2 was -0.02 (95% CI: -2.0 to +1.7) and between waves I and 3 was -9.8 (-7.9 to -11.7). Conclusion-The proportion of participants who were knowledgeable about the new recommendations, increased significantly after the campaign. There was however, no significant difference in knowledge by awareness of the main ca mpaign advertisement. There is no evidence that ACTIVE for LIFE improved ph ysical activity, either overall or in any subgroup.