Swedish Sports clubs as health-promoting settings? A question of how

Research problem and specific questionsThat sport has some kind of significance for and connection to public health is clear.

A common (mis)understanding is that sports clubs are automatically health-promoting since they provide sports and physical activity. Knowledge about health benefits of physical activity and sports exists in masses.

There is also research on barriers to being physically active and participation in sports, but research is to a large extent lacking on how to promote health within organized sports.The proposed project aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring how Swedish sports clubs function as health-promoting settings.

The objectives are (1) to develop theoretically grounded analytic tools of the relations between health promotion and sport as a basis for exploring empirically how health is promoted in sports clubs. (2) to investigate how health is promoted in sports through projects performed in sports clubs as well as in everyday activities of sports clubs.Data and methodThe project will use the potential of settings-based health promotion, which today is not fully used or at least not made aware of in the organized sport setting.

The project will have a mixed-method design and answer to the aim by developing qualitative and quantitative analytical tools using a comprehensive understanding of both health promotion and sport and the relations between them (study 1).

The project will use these tools and through two different types of data (study 2 and 3) explore how Swedish sports clubs function as health-promoting settings.Societal relevance and utilizationThe long-term vision of the proposed project is that more people will get better health through participating in sports clubs, sports clubs that have more knowledge and deliberate strategies for how to promote health carrying out their core-business of sport.

Both the process and the output from the proposed project will have implications for organized sports.Plan for project realisationThe proposed project will be conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in health promotion and sport science, as well as in close collaboration with a sports federation, which, as one significant end-user, can implement the outcomes of this project at once.

The projects scientific and non-scientific deliverables can be used in policy, practice and research, and contributes to a broader understanding of how sports can be an important actor in public health.