Physical activity: key data sources

Surveys

The 2006 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey included one question that focused on physical activity of at least moderate intensity carried out at school and/or in free-time during the previous week. The question was: Over the past 7 days, on how many days were you physically active for a total of at least 60 minutes per day? The response categories were: 0 days, 1 day, 2 days, ...7 days.  A score of 5 or more classified the respondent as meeting the recommendation of one hour or more moderate activity on most days of the week (five or more). The 2006 report compared the responses of boys and girls across countries in terms of the percentage of young people at least one hour daily on moderate/vigorous activity.

The Health Education Population Survey ran annually from 1996 to 2007 and is now replaced by the Knowledge, Attitudes and Motivations (KAM) module in the Scottish Health Survey, which began in 2008. Respondents were asked how much time in an average day they spend walking out of doors (excluding leisure-time walking such as hill-walking, rambling or golf). Respondents were also asked questions about a list of specific physical activities. They were asked if they do these activities in a typical week, how many times, if they put in enough effort to make them sweaty and out of breath, and how long on average they do the activities on each occasion.

The physical activity module of the Scottish Health Survey collects information on the frequency, usual duration and usual intensity of physical activity over the four-week period immediately prior to interview. This allows the calculation of summary measures of physical activity, so that levels of activity can be assessed against recognised guidelines. The questionnaire asks about four broad types of activity: activity at home (housework, gardening, DIY); walking; sports and exercise activities; and activity at work. For each of these types of activity, questions are asked to establish the frequency, duration and intensity of activity in the four weeks prior to interview.

The Scottish Household Survey includes a module of questions on travel and transport. This includes the question: How do you usually travel to work (or school/college/university if in full-time education)?

The Culture and Sport module was introduced into the Scottish Household Survey in 2007 and 2008 and contained questions on sport participation, motivations and barriers to sport, tuition, competition, club membership and volunteering activity relating to sport. Two reports have been published via the Scottish Government website, in November 2008 (reporting on 2007 data) and December 2009 (reporting on 2007 and 2008 data combined).

Reports

The ScotPHO report Are people in Scotland becoming more active? Combined results from Scotland's routine national surveys provides an assessment of long term trends in physical activity amongst adults aged 16-64 in Scotland. Combining data from three Scottish Health Surveys (1995, 1998 and 2003) and ten Health Education Population Surveys (spanning 1996 to 2006), regression analysis is used to examine whether there has been any change in the proportion meeting the recommendations for physical activity between 1995 and 2006. The report also describes inequalities in compliance with the recommendations by gender, age and deprivation. It concludes with recommendations for future survey-based monitoring of physical activity in Scotland.  

Another useful source of information / data is the survey report Sport, exercise and physical activity: Public participation, barriers and attitudes (Murray (2006)) that was commissioned by the Scottish Executive (see also the Research Findings No.20/2006: Sport, exercise and physical activity: Public participation, barriers and attitudes summary report). This report outlines the responses to a module of questions which were included in Ipsos MORI's Scottish Social Policy Monitor in the first half of 2006. The questions examined the public's participation in sport, exercise and physical activity, barriers to participation, and attitudes towards sport and physical activity.