Health promotion of physical activity

Health promotion, or “the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health” is expected to be an integral part of future Australian health policy. It has been suggested that a National Health Promotion and Prevention Agency be established to build the evidence base of effective health promotion and prevention strategies. The Preventative Health Taskforce report recently outlined specific strategies to reduce rates of obesity and tobacco and alcohol consumption. This issue of RESEARCH ROUNDup looks at promotion of physical activity (PA), exploring the effectiveness of interventions and the contributions of recent Australian research to the evidence about promoting physical activity in the primary care setting