A Systematic Review of Community-wide Media Physical Activity Campaigns: An Update From 2010

Mass media campaign is an integral tool to influence physical activity participant behaviors. The purpose of the systematic review was to identify the effectiveness of mass media campaigns in promoting physical activity.

Literature update from January 2010 to September 2016 was conducted in 13 databases. Full text articles of 128 were screened, and 23 articles (18 campaigns) were selected from the initial 1692 articles.

All campaigns involved mass media advertisements to promote physical activity to general individuals (n = 2), adults (8), children (4), older adults (2), and parents of children (n = 2). The campaign evaluation designs included clustered RCT (2), cohort (3), quasi-experimental (9), and cross-sectional (9). Eight articles demonstrated significant campaign impact on proximal, 6 on intermediate, 5 on distal outcomes, and 6 on distal change based on either proximal or intermediate outcome.

The current review assessed the outcome evaluation of mass media physical activity campaigns that varied in their respective scope, target population and outcomes measured to identify individual changes at proximal, intermediate, and distal level. Results from formative and process evaluation as well as dose-response and cost-effective analysis are suggested to provide valuable evidence for campaign stakeholders and planners.