"The "new generation" participACTION: Baseline assessment of national organizational capacity"

The "new generation" ParticipACTION's mission is to positively influence personal behaviours and social supports which encourage healthy, active living for all Canadians. In the examination of population based physical activity campaigns, studies have been limited and generally focus on only three issues: dissemination and accuracy, the behavioural effect of messages, and/or the recall of media items by the general public. Less studied has been the impact such campaigns have on the broader organizational climate to mobilize and advocate for physical activity. This is an important 'upstream' process outcome for facilitating a more active Canada. The objectives of this study are to assess the baseline awareness of organizations regarding the "new generation" ParticipACTION, and their capacity to mobilize and advocate for physical activity.

To address these objectives, there will be two inter-related and sequential studies including 1) a web-based survey of national physical activity and health organizational capacity, and 2) an interview-based qualitative study with purposefully selected key informants. In the first study, we will collect baseline data before the launch of ParticipACTION by inviting key informants to complete a web-based survey on organizational capacity. The survey will be an adaptation of an existing published and validated organizational capacity measure on physical activity from the Alberta Heart Health Survey. Informants will be drawn from membership directories of local, provincial and national network groups and sectors. Analyses will consist of descriptive statistics for profiling organizational capacity at baseline and we will also examine for any differences on scale scores on the basis of features such as size of organization, age or type of organizations (e.g., national versus municipal). In the second study, we will conduct interviews with a purposively selected sample of these key informants to explore the contextual factors that influence organizational functioning in terms of climate, culture and capacity. Overall, these studies will provide baseline data on which the impact of the "new generation" ParticipACTION can be assessed in the future in terms of organizational capacity, readiness and advocacy regarding physical activity.