Getting physical activity research moving

Posted by Louise Hayes, Research Methodologist, Newcastle University and the Fuse Physical Activity Group

So, we all know we should be more physically active – the evidence is out there. People who are more active are less likely to suffer from many chronic diseases, have more energy, better mental health, sleep better…… But how do we get people to be more active?

We knew researchers across North East England were working on physical activity related research and we knew that practitioners were delivering physical activity interventions, with the aim of getting more people active. What we didn’t know was who was doing what and whether or not the evidence from the researchers was getting to the practitioners or if the practitioners were delivering evidence-based intervention or evaluating their interventions. So, a little over five years ago, Martin White, the then Director of Fuse, Laura Basterfield and I (two physical activity researchers at Newcastle University), set about getting physical activity researchers from across the region together. We wanted to provide a forum for researchers to share information on current and future research and to identify opportunities for collaborations across individuals and teams conducting PA research in the Fuse partner universities. The inaugural Fuse Physical Activity Workshop (#FusePAW) was held at Newcastle University in May 2013.

It quickly became apparent that there was an appetite for a Fuse Physical Activity Group to be formed to build upon the enthusiasm for collaborative working and developing a shared physical activity research agenda that was in evidence at this first PAW. Several people also made it clear (and yes, we do mean you, @Scottylloyd1979!) that there was a need to widen the base of the group to include our practitioner partners involved in delivering physical activity interventions on the front line and to build relationships across sector boundaries. And so the Fuse physical activity group was born!

Liane Azevedo and I took on the role of leading the group, along with a team including Scott Lloyd, Caroline Dodd-Reynolds, Alison Innerd and Natalie Connor representing the North East Universities and public health partners. Since then we have had twice yearly Fuse PAWs, hosted by each of the five Fuse Universities and covering a range of topics from inequalities in physical activity to measurement of physical activity and physical activity during pregnancy. We’re proud to say that we’ve achieved an equal balance of academics and practitioners attending the events.

From the outside it might look like it’s been plain sailing – we’ve attracted an amazing cast of physical activity researcher royalty to present at our events, (see the list below - to name but a few!). On the inside there has been blood, sweat and occasional tears! Will the speakers agree to come? Will anyone sign up to attend? Will there be enough parking spaces/coffee? Will we be able to afford fruit during the breaks or just (unhealthy, but delicious) biscuits? (The latter has often been uppermost in the minds of some of our delegates if the feedback we receive in our, now infamous, shiny blue feedback box* is anything to go by!)

We were nervous that attendance might suffer when austerity measures cut into our budget meaning we were no longer able to provide lunch – but happily attendance has steadily increased and we have begun to attract individuals from outside the North East and sometimes even from outside the UK!

It was great to celebrate our tenth PAW on 20th April 2018, following #Fuse10 on 19th April, and to think about our previous events. All the hard work definitely felt worthwhile as we reflected on the many interesting presentations, workshops and discussions that have come out of the FusePAWs as well as collaborations, including a joint evaluation of the Redcar school pedometer intervention by Northumbria and Leeds Beckett Universities.

As #FusePAW, we have a responsibility to ‘do

’ physical activity research better and try to capture how FusePAWs inform physical activity within the region and further afield. To this end we discussed how we can work together more effectively as academics and public health practitioners to challenge traditional methods for delivering and evaluating physical activity interventions to nudge the field forwards at this event.  If you have any suggestions on how we can do this please contact me at louise.hayes@ncl.ac.uk

Watch this space for findings!


The Fuse Physical Activity Group is Louise Hayes, Liane Azevedo, Scott Lloyd, Caroline Dodd- Reynolds, Alison Innerd and Natalie Connor


Just a few of our amazing cast of presenters

Professor Ashley Cooper (University of Bristol), Dr Esther Van Sluijs (University of Cambridge), Dr Paul Kelly (University of Edinburgh), Dr Nick Cavill (Public Health England), Bob Laventure (Loughborough University), Prof Charles Foster (University of Oxford) Dr Mark Tully (Queens University), Prof Tess Kay (Brunel University), Prof Adrian Taylor (University of Plymouth) and Prof John Saxton (Northumbria University).

* Look out for our next event to see it for yourself!

The big countdown

Posted by Emma Dorée, Communications Assistant for Fuse

It’s that lovely time of the year again when we count down the days to Christmas. Whilst we are frantically running around trying to complete our Christmas shopping, we are also eagerly waiting in anticipation to see if this year’s X Factor winner will make the number one top spot and whose festive Foxtrot will lead them to become the Strictly Come Dancing winner.

The Fuse Blog however is having a countdown of its own. Seeing as so many great blogs have been written this year, we thought it would be a good idea to have a look at all of the blogs from 2015 and create our very own ‘Top 5 chart’ of the ‘bestsellers’.

 

So let’s begin….

At number five: No time to run: role overload contributing to physical inactivity in parents? Caroline Dodd-Reynolds’ post looks at how parents find it difficult to fit physical activity into their daily busy routines. With 604 views, this is clearly a subject that lots of people, especially parents, can relate to.

At number four: How active are pregnant women? Measuring the methods. Louise Hayes and Cath McParlin debunk the ‘pregnant pause’ and tell us that guidance recommends that pregnant women should actually be doing at least 30mins of exercise on most days of the week to help reduce the risk of gestational diabetes. This post squeezes into fourth spot by the narrowest of margins, reaching 606 views since publication in May 2015.

In at number three: The troubled families programme: what’s health got to do with it? A guest post by PhD student Stephen Crossley explaining how the Government is helping (or rather not helping) families that need the most help. Stephen goes into great detail about the Troubled Families Programme explaining that health plays a huge role in this issue. This post has had 657 views since it was published in June 2015.

At number two: Bull Sperm and ‘poor parents’: the role of myths in public health practice. Another entry for Stephen Crossley. In this post he takes on the urban myths that surround energy drinks and political myths about benefits and austerity. This post has had close to 750 views.

And finally, time for the top Fuse blog post of 2015. Drum roll please….

Thunder, thunder, thunderclap: when a blog post hits the campaign trail. This blog was written by Fuse Communications Officer Mark Welford and has had an amazing 1575 views. It describes how a Fuse blog post caught the imagination of readers and became a national viral campaign, prompting a campaign page to be set up for people to support the idea that supermarkets should remove unhealthy food from their checkouts. This post followed two other ‘big-hitters’ on the same subject by Mel Wakeman and Amelia Lake: Who’s opting out of responsibility? Battle of the checkouts and Time to chuck the checkout junk? Both have received more than 900 views.

So there you have it, the top five Fuse blog posts from 2015. Let’s see if we can create even bigger and better blogs for 2016!

Did you enjoy reading this post? If so, please vote for Fuse in the UK Blog Awards 2016 by clicking here

How active are pregnant women? Measuring the methods

Posted by Louise Hayes and Cath McParlin 

Louise and Cath are presenting on the subject of physical activity in pregnancy at the Fuse Phyical Activity Workshop tomorrow (15 May) at Sunderland University.

So we all know we should move a bit more to be more healthy and reduce our risk of getting diseases like diabetes. For a long time pregnancy was seen as a time when a woman could put her feet up, take it easy and ‘eat for two’. But not any longer! Guidance published over the last few years recommends no ‘pregnant pause’, but rather that pregnant women should aim to achieve at least 30 minutes of activity of at least moderate intensity activity on most days of the week - just like the rest of us.

Part of the justification for this is that physical activity might help to reduce the risk of gestational diabetes (GDM) – that’s a type of diabetes that is diagnosed in pregnancy and (usually) resolves after the pregnancy. However, to some extent, the jury’s still out on whether or not being active when you’re pregnant really does reduce GDM.

Partly this is because we don’t really know how to measure physical activity accurately in pregnant women. The more precisely we can measure physical activity, the more accurately we can establish the relationship between it and GDM and other health outcomes.

Physical activity measurement is fraught with difficulty in any circumstances – it’s a challenge to measure such a complex and multi-faceted behaviour. Pregnancy brings additional challenges. With the development (and increasing affordability) of numerous objective methods for measuring physical activity – pedometers, heart rate monitors, accelerometers - objective measurement of physical activity in epidemiology is increasingly common. For pregnant women, however, the validity and acceptability of these methods remains unclear.

We have agonised over how best to measure physical activity in a pregnant population. What effect does the increasing size of the ‘bump’ have on the validity of waist-worn monitors? How good are monitors at recording low-level activity, common in pregnant women? What are appropriate cut-offs for different activity intensities in pregnant women?

The choice of measurement method has a huge influence on conclusions we draw about how active women are during pregnancy. We have compared questionnaire methods and accelerometry using different criteria to define activity intensity and found that, depending on the method used, we identify anything from 12% to 65% of pregnant women to be meeting the current guideline (30 minutes of at least moderate activity per day) in the first half of pregnancy.

We’re looking forward to discussing the whys and wherefores of different methods of assessing physical activity with the experts attending the Fuse PA Group Workshop at Sunderland University tomorrow (Friday 15 May).