WWTC Home Page

Worksite Wellness for Tompkins County
Worksite environments that support good nutrition and regular physical activity

Worksite Wellness

Healthy Living

HHW Heart Check

Share Ideas / Ask Questions about worksite wellness

Contact information

Site Contents

Tompkins County Health Department

Tompkins County Home Page

New York State Department of Health


The Health Promotion Program, Tompkins County (NY) Health Department, developed and maintains this web site. (more...)


Physical Activity Recommendations*
from the Guide to Community Preventive Services, 2001

The CDC combs the scientific literature to find intervention strategies that are proven winners.


Physical Activity Promotion Interventions

Regular physical activity is generally accepted as something you can do to enhanced your health and improve your chances of living longer.

More than living longer, physical activity has multiple health benefits, including reducing the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, selected cancers, and musculoskeletal conditions, all of which can have grave affects on the quality of your life.

The "Recommended Physical Activity Level" is either:
>30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity on 5+ days /week, OR
>20 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity on 3+ days /week)  

About Incentive Programs

Step-By-Step guide to a physical activity program based on personal goal setting
 

Even with all the known benefits of regular physical activity, only 25% of adults in the United States report engaging in recommended physical activity levels (see box); 29% report no leisure-time regular physical activity; and only 27% of students in grades 9--12 engage in moderate-intensity physical activity. Reference: BACKGROUND

 

Top of Page


A federally-sponsored program is underway to review the scientific literature covering different ways to tackle public health problems on a community-wide scale. These "Community Guides" rate intervention strategies as "strongly recommended", "recommended", or "insuffucuent evidence".

  In promoting physical activity, the following strategies are strongly recommended:

Communitywide campaigns  |  Individually-adapted programs  |  School-based PE  |  Social support interventions  |  Access to places for physical activity

  1. Communitywide campaigns
    These large-scale, highly visible, multicomponent campaigns direct their messages to large audiences using a variety of approaches, including television, radio, newspapers, movie theaters, billboards, and mailings. More Info  |   Top of List

  2. Individually-adapted health behavior change programs
    These programs are tailored to a person's specific interests or readiness to make a change in physical activity habits. Teaching behavioral skills such as goal setting, building social support, self-rewards, problem solving, and relapse prevention all assist individuals in learning to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines. More Info  |   Top of List

  3. School-based physical education (PE)
    This approach seeks to modify school curricula and policies, and to increase the amount of time students spend in moderate to vigorous activity while in physical education class. Schools can accomplish this either by increasing the amount of time spent in PE class, or by increasing students' activity levels during PE classes. More Info  |   Top of List

  4. Social support interventions in community contexts
    The goal of this approach is to increase physical activity by creating or strengthening social networks. Examples include exercise buddies, exercise contracts, and walking groups. More Info  |   Top of List

  5. Creating or improving access to places for physical activity combined with informational outreach
    This approach ensures that the physical environment is conducive to physical activity, such that places where people can be physically active are readily available, accessible, and acceptable. Examples would include attractive sidewalks, stairwells, walking or biking trails, and exercise facilities in communities or in the workplace. Informational outreach strives to make people aware of available resources, encourages them to take local action, or provides training, seminars, counseling, or risk screening so that resources are well used. The goal is to improve quality of life and achieve livable communities. More Info  |   Top of List

The Task Force on Community Preventive Services recommended the following:

  • Point-of-decision prompts
    Motivational information is provided at the place where an individual is likely to be making a choice of action. For example, by locating signs close to elevators and escalators, people are encouraged to use safe and accessible stairs as a physically active alternative to passive transport. more info  |   Top of List

Top of Page


...about the CDC's "Community Guide" program

The Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) is a federally-sponsored initiative documenting the effectiveness of various population-based interventions. For each health topic selected, an independent Task Force on Community Preventive Services systematically reviews published scientific studies, weighs the evidence, and determines the effectiveness of each intervention strategy by assigning it to one of three categories:

  • "Strongly Recommended"
  • "Recommended," or
  • "Insufficient Evidence." Note, however, that insufficient evidence should not be interpreted as ineffective, but rather as requiring additional research in order to strengthen the evidence.

For more information about the Community Guide, click here.


Links for further information about strongly recommended and recommended interventions:

    Strongly Recommended
  1. Communitywide campaigns
  2. Individually-adapted health behavior change programs
  3. School-based physical education (PE
  4. Social support interventions in community contexts
  5. Creating or improving access to places for physical activity combined with informational outreach
    Recommended
  1. Point-of-decision prompts

Back to Recommendations


*Reference Information and links

The information on this page is excerpted or adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web page titled, Physical Activity Recommendations, unless otherwise referenced by a (Reference) link.

A copy of the full report, "Increasing Physical Activity: A report on recommendations of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services" is available online:
Published in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports – Recommendations and Reports Series, October, 2001, available on-line by visiting http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5018a1.htm.

Also available in PDF Format http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr5018.pdf.

The full text provides additional information about the physical activity recommendations, briefly describes how the reviews were conducted, and provides information that can help in applying the interventions locally.

Related Resource:
Task Force recommendations will be published in a special supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in spring 2002.

Top of Page