RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Exercise is Medicine Global Health Initiative: a 2014 update
JF British Journal of Sports Medicine
JO Br J Sports Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine
SP 1627
OP 1633
DO 10.1136/bjsports-2013-093080
VO 48
IS 22
A1 Felipe Lobelo
A1 Mark Stoutenberg
A1 Adrian Hutber
YR 2014
UL http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/48/22/1627.abstract
AB Background A third of the world's population does not engage in recommended levels of physical activity (PA), leading to substantial health and economic burdens. The healthcare sector offers a variety of resources that can help counsel, refer and deliver PA promotion programmes for purposes of primordial, primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. Substantial evidence already exists in support of multipronged PA counselling, prescription and referral strategies, in particular those linking healthcare and community-based resources. Methods The Exercise is Medicine (EIM) initiative was introduced in 2007 to advance the implementation of evidence-based strategies to elevate the status of PA in healthcare. In this article, we describe the evolution and global expansion of the EIM initiative, its components, their implementation, an evaluation framework and future initiative activities. Results Until now, EIM has a presence in 39 countries with EIM Regional Centers established in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, China and Australasia. The EIM Global Health Initiative is transitioning from its initial phase of infrastructure and awareness building to a phase of programme implementation, with an emphasis in low-to-middle income countries, where 80% of deaths due to non-communicable diseases already occur, but where a large gap in research and implementation of PA strategies exists. Conclusions Broad implementation of PA counselling and referral systems, as clinical practice standard of care, has the potential to improve PA at the population level by complementing and leveraging other efforts and to contribute to achieving global targets for the reduction of inactivity and related morbidity and mortality.