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. 2018 Feb 21;16(1):14.
doi: 10.1186/s12961-018-0290-4.

Contextually tailored interventions can increase evidence-informed policy-making on health-enhancing physical activity: the experiences of two Danish municipalities

Maja Bertram  1 , Natasa Loncarevic  2 , Christina Radl-Karimi  3 , Malene Thøgersen  4 , Thomas Skovgaard  5 , Arja R Aro  2
Affiliations

Contextually tailored interventions can increase evidence-informed policy-making on health-enhancing physical activity: the experiences of two Danish municipalities

Maja Bertram et al. Health Res Policy Syst. .

Abstract

Background: The present study aims to test out contextually tailored interventions to increase evidence-informed health-enhancing physical activity policy-making in two Danish municipalities.

Methods: The study was performed as experiments in natural settings. Based on results from a pre-intervention study defining the needs and contexts of the two settings, the interventions were developed based on logical models. The interventions aimed at increasing the use of knowledge in policy-making, primarily via strengthening intersectoral collaboration. The interventions were evaluated via pre-, post- and 12-month follow-up questionnaires and qualitative interviews were carried out prior to the intervention start.

Results: The use of knowledge changed in several ways. In one municipality, the use of stakeholder and target group knowledge increased whereas, in the other municipality, the use of research knowledge increased. In both municipalities, the ability to translate knowledge to local context, the political request and the organisational procedures for use of knowledge increased during the interventions. There was some variation between the two settings, which shows the importance of tailoring to context. Most of the changes were diminished at the 12-month follow-up.

Conclusion: Contextually tailored interventions have the potential to increase evidence-informed policy-making on health-enhancing physical activity. However, this finding needs to be tested in larger samples and its sustainability must be strengthened.

Keywords: Evidence integration; Implementation research; Participatory approach.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

REPOPA developed an Ethics Road Map and Ethics Guidance Document to coordinate the differing national ethics clearance procedures in partner countries. Although the overall REPOPA project consisted of seven countries, the present study included only Denmark. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Region of South Denmark and the National Data protection Agency (Denmark). Before the start of the project, the papers on ethical clearance were submitted to and approved by the European Commission. Also, the European Commission received an overview of the ethical clearance for the entire project. The participants in the study signed informed consent statements before starting the interventions.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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