Understanding the barriers to physical activity for equity-deserving populations
Sector(s):
Service(s):
The Change
78
participants
9
focus groups
5
equity-deserving populations engaged
The BC Alliance for Healthy Living Society (BCAHL) was seeing a sharp decline in physical activity levels in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fewer children and youth in B.C. are meeting Canada’s physical activity guidelines and this gap is even greater for families facing systemic barriers related to income, race, newcomer status, disability, gender, and geography.
BCAHL engaged Be the Change Group to understand how families and youth from equity-deserving communities could be better supported to be physically active.
The approach
A province wide, trauma informed, approach
We led a province-wide community consultation, which included in-depth literature reviews, community-led focus groups, and partnerships with organizations such as I·SPARC, McCreary Centre Society, YMCA BC, Canucks Autism Network, and newcomer-serving agencies. Our goal was understanding what was working well and what needed to change to make physical activity more accessible, inclusive, and culturally relevant for diverse families.
We took a trauma-informed and strengths-based approach in consultation with Indigenous partners to ensure that families, youth, and community leaders could safely share their experiences, insights, and ideas. The strengths-based approach was essential to honour community resilience, cultural knowledge, and leadership, and reflect the fact that Indigenous communities already hold many of the solutions. This supported more respectful, empowering, and culturally safe engagement.
A total of nine focus groups were conducted in partnership with community-led organizations across B.C., facilitated either by representatives of the organizations themselves or by researchers from Be the Change Group, depending on organizational capacity and preference. In total, 78 participants were engaged, representing a diverse cross-section of families and youth from equity-deserving populations.
The Social Ecological model for public health research
We analyzed findings based on the Social Ecological Model, which is widely used in public health research to contextualize behaviour within structural systems and social environments. The model organizes factors, such as barriers and facilitators, into clear, digestible categories. This provides a structured approach for identifying and addressing these factors at their respective levels, to support the development of targeted recommendations and strategies for stakeholders, program leaders, and policy makers.
The report
Our final report synthesized the voices of families across the province, identified barriers and facilitators to physical activity, and provided actionable, community-informed recommendations for policies and programs.
This work has equipped leaders, partners, and policymakers in B.C.’s physical activity and recreation sector with meaningful, equity-focused solutions to help every child and family thrive through active living.
Don't take our word for it...
“I would highly recommend Be the Change Group – they are organized, professional, knowledgeable, friendly and they deliver! It was clear from the proposal they submitted to our RFP that they take the time to understand the project and your organization, this carried on through the project with regular communications and a commitment to work around barriers and deliver a strong outcome that met our needs. We were very happy with the process for working with us and with the equity-deserving communities that we were engaging and with the analysis and clear writing in the final report which sets us up well for the next steps in our work.”
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