The Exercise is Medicine Global Health Initiative: a 2014 update.
BACKGROUND
A third of the world's population does not engage in recommended levels of physical activity (PA), leading to substantial health and economic burdens. The healthcare sector offers a variety of resources that can help counsel, refer and deliver PA promotion programmes for purposes of primordial, primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. Substantial evidence already exists in support of multipronged PA counselling, prescription and referral strategies, in particular those linking healthcare and community-based resources.


METHODS
The Exercise is Medicine (EIM) initiative was introduced in 2007 to advance the implementation of evidence-based strategies to elevate the status of PA in healthcare. In this article, we describe the evolution and global expansion of the EIM initiative, its components, their implementation, an evaluation framework and future initiative activities.


RESULTS
Until now, EIM has a presence in 39 countries with EIM Regional Centers established in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, China and Australasia. The EIM Global Health Initiative is transitioning from its initial phase of infrastructure and awareness building to a phase of programme implementation, with an emphasis in low-to-middle income countries, where 80% of deaths due to non-communicable diseases already occur, but where a large gap in research and implementation of PA strategies exists.


CONCLUSIONS
Broad implementation of PA counselling and referral systems, as clinical practice standard of care, has the potential to improve PA at the population level by complementing and leveraging other efforts and to contribute to achieving global targets for the reduction of inactivity and related morbidity and mortality.
Exercise is Medicine Research Center, American College of Sports Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Felipe
F
Lobelo
American College of Sports Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.
Mark
M
Stoutenberg
American College of Sports Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Adrian
A
Hutber
D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000458:organization & administration; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D003376:Counseling; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005544:Forecasting; D014943:Global Health; D015438:Health Behavior; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education; D006284:Health Plan Implementation; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D012017:Referral and Consultation
Health promotion through physical activity; Physical activity promotion in primary care