Increasing community-level social support for physical activity in the rural Southwestern United States
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Increasing community-level social support for physical activity in the rural Southwestern United States Julia Meredith Hess 1
&
Sally M. Davis 1
Received: 4 March 2019 / Accepted: 7 May 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Aim This study reports on a community-university partnership in a rural New Mexico community that aims to increase physical activity (PA) by translating research into practice. The Guide recommendations include community-wide campaigns, increasing and enhancing access to places for PA, social support, street and community-scale design and policy, and individually adapted programs for PA. This article reports on the ways in which social support was integrated into each of these community guide recommendations as well as changing the social context to make individuals’ default decisions healthy. Subjects and Methods Qualitative research methods included conducting and analyzing interviews with community members, walking and hiking group members, local news articles, and meeting notes of the community-university partnership. Participants reported social support challenges around the cultural context and gender norms related to PA, weather, the built environment, safety, and policy. Results The community-university partnership addressed these challenges by enlisting walking champions who served as role models in the community and began to change social norms around walking; challenging environmental and safety conditions were addressed through community campaign efforts and changes in the built environment. Conclusion Using a multi-pronged, multi-level approach to address barriers to PA at the community level may result in increases in social support for PA that go beyond efforts that focus on the individual level and provide integrated, holistic strategies to address health disparities in rural communities. Keywords Social support . Community-level effects . Physical activity . Rural
Introduction This research was conducted during the course of a dissemination and implementation study led by a communityuniversity partnership in Cuba, New Mexico. The partnership was developed with the goal of improving community health, prompted by high rates of diabetes, and the recognition from community members that there was increased need for community-based efforts that support diet and changes in physical activity (PA). The Alliance, which is a communitybased coalition of stakeholders representing community * Julia Meredith Hess [email protected] Sally M. Davis [email protected] 1
Department of Pediatrics, University of New Mexico, MSC 11 6145, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
members, health care providers, village leaders, schools, federal, and state and local agencies was established and named Step Into Cuba. The study objectives of the research project, Village Interventions and Venues for Action (VIVA), was to increase PA. The university-community partnership is therefore referred to as VIVA-Step Into Cuba. The focus was on dissemination and i
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