Wider influences of physical activity
The Kirklees Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-27 includes an ambition that "The physical and social infrastructure and environment supports people of all ages who live, work or study in Kirklees to maximise their health opportunities and to make the healthy choice the easy choice". It features a 'rainbow model' of factors that influence people's health and wellbeing, consisting of an individual's characteristics, what they do, how they feel, and the broader social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions they live in.
The COM-B behaviour change model identifies three influencing factors necessary to enable a person to consider changing their behaviour: capability (physical and psychological), opportunity (physical and social) and motivation (automatic and reflective).
In the context of physical activity, influencing factors (framed around COM-B) may include:
- Physical capability: General levels of health and wellbeing, physical fitness levels, pre-existing health conditions, physical skills and coordination.
- Psychological capability: Being able to take advice, understanding why exercise is good, making decisions, fitting physical activity into daily life.
- Physical opportunity: Time, weather, availability and accessibility of facilities/activities, cost, access to qualified instructors.
- Social opportunity: Access to support and consistent information from healthcare and exercise professionals, someone to be active with, encouragement from others, peer support, positive reinforcement from social networks.
- Reflective motivation: Believing exercise is helpful, feeling confident in managing health, staying motivated, knowing activity can fit into daily life, setting and achieving goals.
- Automatic motivation: Overcoming inactivity and long periods of sitting down, enjoying being active, dealing with past bad experiences, overcoming fear of worsening health, maintaining good mental wellbeing.
Aligning the Health and Wellbeing Strategy rainbow model with a COM-B approach suggests that:
- Physical and psychological capability are mostly influenced by factors in the 'Individuals' and 'What we do' segments of the rainbow.
- Physical and social opportunity are mostly influenced by factors in the 'Poverty' and 'Wider determinants' segments, with some aspects of physical opportunity also influenced by 'Beyond Kirklees' factors, and aspects of social opportunity influenced by 'How we feel'.
- Reflective and automatic motivation are mostly influenced by factors in the 'How we feel' rainbow segment.
| Rainbow segment | COM-B element |
|---|---|
| Individuals | Physical and psychological capability |
| What we do | Physical and psychological capability |
| How we feel | Reflective and automatic motivation; Social opportunity |
| Poverty | Physical and social opportunity |
| Wider determinants | Physical and social opportunity |
| Beyond Kirklees | Physical opportunity |
The 'I statements' in the Health and Wellbeing strategy demonstrate the factors which Kirklees residents feel are important for them to be active:
- I would like safe accessible local places where I can meet friends and we can do activities together regardless of our age and abilities.
- I would like to access affordable activities that I can do with my children that help us to be physically and mentally fit.
- I would like my local area to be disability friendly, making sure we are all included regardless of our abilities and needs.
- I would like green, natural, outdoor spaces in my local area that help me to be active and support my wellbeing.
