Assessment of muscle-strengthening exercise adult participation in public health surveillance: A systematic review

This research has been supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and a University of Southern Queensland Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship. The authors wish to also thank Dr. Tricia Kelly for her support and guidance in the search strategy phase of this review.There is strong scientific evidence that muscle-strengthening exercise (i.e. use of weight machines, push‐ups, sit-ups) is independently associated with a reduced risk of multiple chronic diseases (e.g. diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease). However, prevalence rates for meeting the muscle-strengthening exercise guideline (≥2 times/week) are significantly lower (~20%) than those reported to meet the aerobic physical activity guideline (e.g. walking, jogging, cycling) (~50%). It is therefore important to understand public health surveillance approaches to assess muscle-strengthening exercise. The aim of this review was to describe muscle-strengthening exercise assessment in public health surveillance. Informed by the PRISMA guidelines, an extensive keyword search was undertaken across 7 electronic data bases. We identified 86,672 possible articles and following screening (n = 1,140 in full-text) against specific inclusion criteria (adults aged ≥18 years, English, studies containing