Vital City Challenge

Background The VCC project is about equipping cities with the right tools, testing innovative, data-driven, approaches to better engage citizens in sport and, promoting health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) across sectors; introduced in 2021 and 2022 in four European cities: Emmen, Fuenlabrada, Sofia and Trnava. We are constantly developing new and sustainable ways of enhancing the level of physical activity and improving the health of European citizens. Objectives Engage citizens and track physical activity using gamification techniques; support cites in designing their sport strategies; use of data from app users, implementing promotional activities and evaluating the outcome regarding local controls or historic data; develop knowledge and evidence base of data-driven sport policies through a scientific evaluation and review process; evaluate the impact and design of local roadmaps to define best practices; scale up local initiatives in Europe. Implementation VCC App and Challenge empower citizens in 4 different city versions through personal insights, learning and fun. Each partner city plans which aspects to focus while measuring the societal impact; end data of each city are collected via the app and every input is based on demographics counting steps, stairs, cycling. Based on a logic model using activities, outcomes and indicators, the system summarizes complex factors, objectively and anonymously, giving solutions to the policy-makers. Achievements Local roadmaps: adjusted and finalized for each partner city with evaluations and roll out plans. Local versions App: needs of 4 cities were identified to custom the use of the app; sophisticated functionality and data collection. Focus Groups/ Policy Advise: local toolkits from the review and analysis of baseline data in 3 layers of evaluation. 16,000 people engaged in VCC Challenge; 2,230 app downloads; 20% increase in physical activity; 44% of the people are more active than one year ago.