Congratulations to recent HALO PhD graduate Dr. Salomé Aubert on her successful presentation today at the virtual event organized by the University of Cambridge, MRC Epidemiology Unit. It was one of their most successful seminars in terms of registrations/participants. The title of Salome’s talk was “Global prevalence of physical activity for children and adolescents: inconsistencies, research gaps and recommendations “. A summary of the presentation is below.

Well done! Bravo Salomé!

Objective: To present findings from the available global surveillance systems of physical activity (PA) for children and youth (0-17 year-old), and to highlight research gaps and needs for their improvement.

Methods: Narrative review of the international surveillance systems, studies, and global initiatives collecting or compiling evidence on the PA among children and youth.

Results: PA surveillance systems lack standardization and are not conducted regularly. Surveillance data are mostly focused on older children and adolescents and are especially scarce for PA trends over time, vulnerable populations, and in resource-limited low-middle-income countries. Variation in the geographic patterns of PA levels are observed between studies, which could be attributed to the diversity of approaches used to measure PA.

Conclusions: There is a need for globally accepted and standardized measurement, reporting, and accountability protocols that countries can universally follow in order to have meaningful progress in the global surveillance and promotion of PA among children and youth.

If you did not have a chance to attend Salome’s presentation but would like to watch it, please follow this link to access the recording and slides.