Addressing community readiness to promote physical activity in older adults in Germany

Community-based approaches are promising to promote physical activity in old age. The community readiness (CR) model offers a structured approach to assess community capacities to address a certain health topic before and after implementing an intervention. The objective of this study is to assess whether community-based capacity building for physical activity among the elderly has a lasting effect on CR. Four communities (two sub-urban and two urban) in Northwestern Germany were randomly assigned to either intervention or control group. CR was assessed at three time points (2015, 2018 and 2020) by interviewing local key informants (n = 129). Community capacity building was carried out in the two intervention communities after baseline assessment and included the development and implementation of a local physical activity action plan for elderly. Overall CR scores were calculated and random effects regression analysis was performed to analyze group-by-time interaction. At baseline, the overall CR score was 4.62 (standard deviation (SD) = 0.51) indicating that communities were in the preplanning stage of CR. CR scores in the intervention communities did not significantly increase at follow-up assessments compared to control communities [2018: 4.82, coefficient -0.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) (-0.80; 0.73); 2020: 4.54, coefficient 0.19, 95% CI: (-0.59; 0.97)]. The process evaluation indicated several factors facilitating a successful cooperation with community stakeholders. These included building on existing networks, using a structured approach for developing and implementing a local physical activity action plan for older adults, providing financial support for implementing activities and linking activities to existing community events.