Evaluation of the effects of the community-based intervention “10.000 Steps Duesseldorf” for the promotion of physical activity in two cities in North Rhine-Westphalia: Study protocol (Preprint)

Abstract

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (PA) which translates to approximately 7.000-10.000 steps/day for adults. In Germany, less than half of the population in this age range reaches this recommendation highlighting the need for population-based intervention approaches to promote daily PA.

The complex community-based PA intervention „10,000 Steps Ghent“, originally developed in Belgium and shown to be effective for PA promotion, is adapted for implementation and evaluation in two German cities. The original Belgian study is currently replicated and effectiveness of the adapted intervention will be examined in adults living in intervention city districts in Duesseldorf compared to those living in control city districts in Wuppertal over the course of one year.

A controlled intervention trial examining the effects of an intervention addressing multiple levels (e.g., individual level: website; organizational level: PA promotion in companies; community level: media campaign, environmental changes) is conducted. PA and various secondary outcomes are assessed in two random samples of adults aged 25 to 75 years (n=399 in each city) at baseline and after one year.

Funding for the study was obtained in March 2020. Recruitment for the study and baseline data collection were conducted from May 2021 to March 2022 (as of March 2022, 626 participants were enrolled in the study). The intervention will be implemented in Duesseldorf for one year from April 2022 onwards and follow-up assessments will be conducted starting in May 2023 (until September 2023). Data analysis will be performed in Fall 2023 and results published in Spring 2024.

To our knowledge, this is the first research project currently underway in Germany aimed at replicating the effects of a complex intervention for PA promotion previously shown to be effective in another European country.

German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00024873 (Date of registration: April 21st, 2021; URL: https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00024873).