title: Comparative Effectiveness Research: A Roadmap for Physical Activity and Lifestyle.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is designed to support informed decision making at both the individual, population, and policy levels. The American College of Sports Medicine and partners convened a conference with the focus of building an agenda for CER within the context of physical activity and nonpharmacological lifestyle approaches in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. This report summarizes the conference content and consensus recommendations that culminated in a CER roadmap for physical activity and lifestyle approaches to reducing the risk of chronic disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  This conference focused on presentations and discussion around the following topic areas: 1) defining CER, 2) identifying the current funding climate to support CER, 3) summarizing methods for conducting CER, and 4) identifying CER opportunities for physical activity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This conference resulted in consensus recommendations to adopt a CER roadmap for physical activity and lifestyle approaches to reducing the risk of chronic disease. In general, this roadmap provides a systematic framework by which CER for physical activity can move from a planning phase to a phase of engagement in CER related to lifestyle factors with particular emphasis on physical activity to a societal change phase that results in changes in policy, practice, and health.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is recommended that physical activity researchers and health care providers use the roadmap developed from this conference as a method to systematically engage in and apply CER to the promotion of physical activity as a key lifestyle behavior that can be effective at making an impact on a variety of health-related outcomes.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Health and Physical Activity, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; 2Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; 3Department of Exercise Science, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC; 4Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA; 5Department of Biomedical Informatics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; 6Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; 7Department of Epidemiology, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA; 8Survey Research Center and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; 9Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, San Diego, University of California, San Diego, CA; 10Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center, Fontana, CA; and 11American College of Sports Medicine, Indianapolis, IN.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Jakicic
authors.forename: Harold
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authors.lastname: Sox
authors.forename: Steven N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Blair
authors.forename: Mark
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authors.lastname: Bensink
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Abby C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: I-Min
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Inbal
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nahum-Shani
authors.forename: James F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Sallis
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Sallis
authors.forename: Lynette
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Craft
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Whitehead
authors.forename: Barbara E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Ainsworth
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000517:prevention & control; D057186:Comparative Effectiveness Research / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D032921:Consensus; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D009043:Motor Activity; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior