TY - JOUR T1 - Temporal trends in adults’ sports participation patterns in England between 1997 and 2006: the Health Survey for England JF - British Journal of Sports Medicine JO - Br J Sports Med SP - 901 LP - 908 DO - 10.1136/bjsm.2008.048082 VL - 42 IS - 11 AU - E Stamatakis AU - M Chaudhury Y1 - 2008/11/01 UR - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/42/11/901.abstract N2 - Objective: To examine temporal trends in participation in sport and exercise activities in England between 1997 and 2006 while taking into account wider societal changes.Design: A series of annual cross-sectional surveys.Setting and participants: Nationally representative samples of men (n = 27 217) and women (n = 33 721) aged ⩾16 years.Main outcome measures: Any (more than once every 4 weeks) and regular (more than once a week) participation in overall sport and exercise and a number of sport and exercise groupings (eg cycling, swimming, gym and fitness club-based activities (G/FC), racquet sports). Time point (1997/98, 2003/04, 2006) was the main dependent variable.Results: Age-standardised overall regular participation changed from 40.8% in 1997/98 to 41.2% in 2006 for men (multivariable-adjusted participation OR = 1.11 in 2006, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.19, p<0.001) and from 31.2% to 33.9% for women (1.21, 1.13 to 1.29, p<0.001). Regular G/FC increased from 17.0% to 19.2% for men (1.19, 1.09 to 1.30) and from 15.9% to 18.7% for women (1.23, 1.14 to 1.33) and regular running increased from 2.4% to 4.0% for women only (1.84, 1.56 to 2.18). Overall increases were apparent only in older adults (⩾45 years) (1.25, 1.16 to 1.35, p<0.001). Young men (16–29 years) had reduced ORs for cycling (0.72, 0.58 to 0.88, p = 0.008), dancing (0.60, 0.45 to 0.82, p = 0.001), running (0.78, 0.64 to 0.94, p<0.001) and racquet sports (0.60, 0.42 to 0.86, p = 0.003). In men, increases were pronounced only among men from non-manual social classes, higher income households and white ethnic backgrounds.Conclusions: Sports and exercise participation in England has changed between 1997 and 2006 as the result of increases among middle-aged and older adults and decreases among young men. There are no signs that the participation gap between less and more advantaged population groups is narrowing. ER -