Abstract

Summary of presentation
This presentation examines how policies to promote physical activity intersect with the transnational challenge of reducing health inequalities. National policies to increase physical activity generally focus on strategies to promote individual behaviour change, while structural factors that produce health inequalities go largely unrecognised. The presentation looks especially at how these omissions have come about in the UK, where scholarship into health inequalities is highly developed. The analysis suggests that the omissions arise not from a dearth of evidence, but from the failure of PA expert communities to use it. Suggestions are made for ensuring that PA policy is underpinned by a more diverse knowledge base that connects to the international debate around health inequalities, and thus producing more informed PA guidance.