Promoting health enhancing physical activity and social welfare through outdoor running events

Background Participatory sport events have been recently proposed as one of the strategies to promote physical activity participation (Alexandris et al., 2017), because of the “sport participation effect” (Derom, VanWynsberghe Scheerder, 2013). As explained by Derom et al., (2013), active participation in sport events (and the training which participants complete prior to this event) can increase physical activity of both active and inactive individuals. Objectives This project capitalized on the international popularity of running, its leisure and social dimension and aimed to show on how running events can be used an effective strategy to promote health-enhancing physical activity and social welfare in a EU level. Implementation The objectives of the project were achieved through multiple methods. More than ten thousand questionnaires were collected from running events in the four partcipant countries. Observations, interviews and secondary research were also used in order to develop the policy documents. Several dissemination activities were organized Achievements The results of the study indicated that running events can be further used as a mean to promote health enhancing physical activity among the general population. The leisure, fun and social aspects of such events should be promoted. A cooperation among several bodies informed in the organisation of such events is required. Several good practices are proposed