What do we know about how to promote physical activity to adolescents? A mapping review

To date, adolescent physical activity (PA) intervention research has focused on the school setting and suggests a need to extend interventions beyond this setting to influence teenagers' overall level of PA. But, the relative effectiveness of PA promotion strategies that can be part of such multi-setting interventions remains unknown. We completed a mapping review of PA intervention research that focused on increasing adolescents' level of PA to describe the sum of what has been learned in this area and to expose research and knowledge gaps. We searched data bases from 1993 to September 2014, included PA promotion intervention studies targeting 12- to 17-year-old youth and assessing changes in their level of PA, and used ecological and capacity building frameworks to review this research. The 46 included studies suggest that little is known about strategies targeting the interpersonal, organizational, community or policy levels of teenagers' PA behavior influences; our current knowledge remains concentrated in the intrapersonal domain and the school setting. We suggest avenues for researchers as well as practitioners who design and implement adolescent PA programs such that we further develop our research and practice knowledge base and develop programs to positively impact adolescents' PA behavior.