Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
Volume 13, Issue 6 , Pages 566-567, November 2010

Health promotion in sport: An analysis of peak sporting organisations’ health policies

  • Bridget Kelly

      Affiliations

    • Prevention Research Collaboration, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author.
    • ,
  • Louise A. Baur

      Affiliations

    • Prevention Research Collaboration, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    • ,
  • Adrian E. Bauman

      Affiliations

    • Prevention Research Collaboration, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    • ,
  • Ben J. Smith

      Affiliations

    • Department of Health Social Science, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
    • ,
  • Shaimaa Saleh

      Affiliations

    • Prevention Research Collaboration, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    • ,
  • Lesley A. King

      Affiliations

    • Prevention Research Collaboration, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    • ,
  • Kathy Chapman

      Affiliations

    • Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, Australia

Received 20 May 2010 published online 12 July 2010.

Article Outline

Keywords: Sport, Policy, Health promotion

 

Community settings have been identified as a key context for achieving health promotion objectives. In particular, the Ottawa Charter highlights the importance of settings in health promotion, whereby “health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life; where they learn, work, play and love”.1 Sports clubs have been proposed as providing an opportunity to embed health promotion into everyday activities.2

The concept of health promoting sports clubs extends the role of sport beyond the promotion and provision of opportunities for physical activity to other areas of public health. For example, sports clubs can be engaged to target healthful or high risk behaviours; the latter including smoking, excess sun exposure, unhealthy eating and discrimination.3 One mechanism through which sports clubs can promote health is through the development of healthy environments and organisational culture,4 including structural changes and policy implementation.5

Children's high levels of participation in organised sport, with 1.7 million children participating in at least one organised sport outside of school hours in Australia in 2009,6 provides further support for the potential role of sport in promoting health. While children typically engage with sport through local clubs and events, the policies of peak sporting organisations may influence the delivery of sport at the community level.

In particular, national sporting organisations (NSOs) and state sporting organisations (SSOs) have a role in assisting and overseeing sports clubs. In a previous survey of community sports clubs (n=108) in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), almost half were affiliated with NSOs and 70% with SSOs.7 Furthermore, 56% of affiliated clubs were in contact with SSOs at least fortnightly during competition season, including through organisations’ websites.

Earlier surveys of sports clubs have identified barriers to the development of health-related policies, including limited resources and lack of policy directives from peak sporting organisations.8 In light of this, we investigated the availability of health-related policies which are freely available on peak sporting organisations’ websites, as an indicator of their efforts to facilitate greater awareness and adoption of these policies at the club level.

Peak NSOs and SSOs (n=55) for the most popular children's sports in NSW were identified, including soccer, swimming, netball, rugby league, tennis, cricket, martial arts, basketball and athletics,9 based on membership data. SSOs were selected from NSW, ACT, Victoria (VIC) and Western Australia (WA).

A structured coding tool was developed following consideration of previous research on sports websites in New Zealand.10 This coding tool assessed the availability and content of policies related to healthy nutrition, sun safety, smoke-free, safety and injury prevention, fair play, participation by children with disabilities, participation by Indigenous children, and anti-discrimination. Websites were analysed by one research officer between August 2009 and January 2010. Initial data collection was cross-checked by the lead investigator. Descriptive analyses were conducted to describe the characteristics of sporting organisations and the availability of health-related policies. Available policies were also analysed thematically.

The availability of policies for some health-related areas was relatively high, particularly for social inclusion issues such as anti-discrimination and fair play, which were available on 33 and 26 of all 55 websites respectively. The high frequency of anti-discrimination policies extends from broader efforts to reduce discrimination, and particularly racism, in sport.11 However, the availability of other policies was much lower; ranging from three organisations with policies on increasing sporting opportunities for Indigenous children, to 15 with policies on sun protection. Notably, the availability of policies relating to healthy nutrition was lower than that for sun safety and smoke-free facilities. This finding supports previous research assessing health-related policies at the club level, which has shown a relatively low availability of policies on healthy nutrition compared to other aspects of health promotion.12, 13 This lack of available policies on healthy nutrition at peak sporting organisations may be contributing to an absence of these policies at the community sport level, although this needs to be confirmed through research with sports clubs.

In VIC and WA, where the health promotion foundations VicHealth and HealthWay have been established, it was expected there would be a higher frequency of health-related policies. These foundations provide funding to SSOs on the proviso that organisations develop and implement health-related policies. However, while sporting organisations from VIC and WA had the highest frequency of healthy nutrition policies (7/26 websites each), and WA had the most policies on smoke-free facilities (14/26), organisations from NSW had the highest proportion of policies for all other health-related areas.

An evaluation of the VicHealth Partnerships for Health scheme, which funded 49 SSOs (referred to as State Sporting Associations) between 2003 and 2007, identified that many of the policies reported by SSOs did not meet minimum standards.14 A subsequent recommendation was that SSOs should develop health-related policy templates that could be utilised by sports clubs.14

The high frequency of contact between clubs and NSOs and SSOs, and the authoritative position of these peak organisations, means that these may provide an ideal avenue through which to introduce health-related policies at sports clubs and assist in overcoming barriers related to knowledge and resources. However, the low availability of health-related policies at peak sporting organisations indicates that the potential for information transfer to clubs is currently limited. In addition, while it appears that health promotion foundations provide an important framework for creating health promoting sports clubs, with support from SSOs, further effort and resources are required to operationalise this agenda. In particular, there is a need to build the capacity of peak organisations to develop health-related policies and to foster partnerships between these organisations and sports clubs for effective communication of policies.

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Disclosures 

This work was supported by Cancer Council NSW and the Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Project: LP0989387).

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References 

  1. World Health Organization . Ottawa charter. In: Ottawa: first international conference on health promotion. 1986;Available from: http://www.ldb.org/iuhpe/ottawa.htm [cited 20 March 2009].
  2. Kokko S, Kannas L, Villberg J. Health promotion profile of youth sports clubs in Finland: club officials’ and coaches’ perceptions. Health Promotion International. 2009;24(1):26–35
  3. Priest N, Armstrong R, Doyle J, et al. Policy interventions implemented through sporting organisations for promoting healthy behaviour change. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2008;4
  4. Kokko S, Kannas L, Villberg J. The health promoting sports club in Finland—a challenge for the settings-based approach. Health Promotion International. 2006;21(3):219–229
  5. National Health and Medical Research Council . Health promoting sport, arts and racing settings. Canberra: NHMRC; 1996;Available from: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/file/publications/synopses/withdrawn/hp2.pdf [cited 2 December 2009].
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  7. Kelly B, Baur AL, Bauman AE, et al. Examining opportunities for health promotion in children's sport: a survey of sports club officials. Sydney: Prevention Research Collaboration and Cancer Council NSW; 2010;
  8. Dobbinson S, Hayman J. VicHealth healthy sports club study: a survey of structures, policy and practice. Melbourne: Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, Cancer Control Institute, Cancer Council Victoria; 2002;
  9. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 4901.0—Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities, Australia. Canberra; 2006. Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4901.0Apr%202006?OpenDocument [cited 15 February 2010].
  10. Maher A, Wilson N, Signal L, et al. Patterns of sports sponsorship by gambling, alcohol and food companies: an Internet survey. BMC Public Health. 2006;6:95
  11. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. What's the score? A survey of cultural diversity and racism in Australian sport; 2007. Available from: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/whats_the_score/index.html [cited 15 April 2010].
  12. Crisp BR, Swerissen H. Critical processes for creating health-promoting sports environments in Australia. Health Promotion International. 2003;18(2):145–152
  13. Corti B, Holman CD, Donovan RJ, et al. Warning: attending a sport, racing or arts venue may be beneficial to your health. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 1997;21(4 Spec No):371–376
  14. VicHealth. VicHealth partnerships for health scheme evaluation (summary). Melbourne; 2007.

PII: S1440-2440(10)00124-6

doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2010.05.007

Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
Volume 13, Issue 6 , Pages 566-567, November 2010

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