Translation of Health and Physical Activity Guidelines for Real World Application

In promoting health behaviour, particularly pertaining to physical activity, a plethora of guidelines exist. However, instances exist where such guidelines were never designed to be client or population facing, rather they were intended to be used by clinicians to inform our practice and guidelines. Unfortunately, what has manifested is the use of the guidelines without any translation which leads to ineffective application or a disassociation with them all together, and ultimately a downtrend in the engagement with the desired behaviours. This may result in the initial value of the original research not being realised in terms of positive health behaviours. Furthermore adopting a healthy behaviour does not mean you automatically become healthy, it is important to capture that often research provides ideas which may help improve the situation without necessarily offering entire solutions, and accordingly we should case a keen eye on the effective translation of such messages.

There is a vast body of literature identifying important behaviours relating to dietary, physical activity, and lifestyle behaviours that serve to predict health and wellbeing in relation to numerous mental and physical health markers. The body of literature examining the translation of such empirical recommendations into applied practice is less well documented however it is noted that barriers to positive change relate to available opportunities, motivation, and self-efficacy.

Consequently, this collection aims to question how effectively research findings are being translated into disseminatable health messages, and guidance and subsequently communicated to healthcare professionals and specific and general populations and, in turn, promoting healthy behaviour change.

This body of work should offer guidance on how published research findings are shared in a digestible and actionable manner and therefore bridges the gap between research and practice. Essentially, efforts are needed to review the clarity of health and wellbeing recommendations and also examine the characteristics of effective health messaging in terms of influencing positive health behaviours. The work should look to examine and identify developmental needs in terms of the clarity of applied empirical recommendations as well as the means of relaying such information to end service users.

The above title for the topic intends to be open enough to encourage submission across a range of research areas. These could include the areas of psychology, behaviour change, physical activity, and training modalities. These could be original articles or the synthesis of existing work for instance systematic reviews or meta-analyses. Importantly, the scope of the collection centres on the dissemination of informational interventions pertaining to improving physical activity. A critical perspective should be afforded to the extent such recommendations are appropriately realised as intended. This could, ultimately, evaluate the extent research findings translate into appropriate and accessible health messages.