EUPASMOS – The European Physical Activity and Sports Monitoring System is collaborative project jointly funded by the European Commission, through the Erasmus+ Sport grant, and includes several EU Member States namely Finland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Italy, France, Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Since the initial EUPASMOS application, several other EU Member States have joined the EUPASMOS PLUS project and are already working together including the Republic of North Macedonia (2019) – EU Member State candidate. The EUPASMOS and EUPASMOS PLUS projects run between January 2018 and December 2019. The project is being driven by a coordination team led by Invited Professor Paulo Rocha, PhD., Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, I.P. (Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth) working in close collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

The successful promotion of health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) requires authoritative information to enable the design, implementation and evaluation of effective and costeffective policies.

The aim of the EUPASMOS, is to implement an integrated and shared monitoring system for physical activity and sport participation across European Member States. This will make it possible to provide comparable, valid and reliable data to support the design, promotion and implementation of effective and evidence-based HEPA policies and strategies across the EU.

I – To establish a monitoring framework to assess sedentary behavior patterns, physical activity and sport participation in the European Member States.

II – To compare commonly used questionnaires for physical activity surveillance, such as the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the Eurobarometer, as well as national physical activity questionnaires, where applicable, with each other and with objective accelerometer data in a validation study using representative samples from European partner countries.

III – To analyze and compare sedentary behavior patterns and physical activity and sport participation prevalence rates across European Member States based on the results obtained in the validation study.

IV – To develop a toolkit to build and reinforce Member State’s capacity to monitor, analyze and compare sedentary behavior patterns, physical activity and sport participation prevalence data.

V – To support the development of the physical activity section of the WHO’s European Health Information Gateway database, aligning it with the European HEPA monitoring framework.

Key Activities

  • Review of literature for the development of a monitoring framework
  • Collection of data on physical activity, sport participation and sedentary behaviors
  • Analysis of data collected in phase II and validation monitoring tools
  • Analysis and comparison of results gathered, in order to calibrate existing prevalence data
  • Finalization of toolkit and dissemination of project findings through several publications.

This project will create the possibility to develop a new integrated monitoring framework that is better able to strengthen surveillance across the HEPA sectors, reduce the problems related with data validity and reliability and, therefore, contribute to the adjustment of European and national HEPA policies in order to promote population physical activity and sport participation, equitable access and social inclusion.

        EUPASMOS PLUS, Kick-off meeting, Warsaw, 5 May 2019

EUPASMOS – Project Partners, COUNTRY PRESENTERS,  4th  Meeting –  Netherland

The project is also counting with the support of several relevant international sport and health sector organizations such as TAFISA, ISCA, EuropeActive, European Cycling Federation, European Platform for Sport Innovation, Robert Koch Institute, Institute of Sport Science and Sport, and of course WHO – Regional Office for Europe. All the information developed by the EUPASMOS project regarding the framework definition, methodology used, results obtained and toolkits produced will be published in the official website at www.eupasmos.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS6PNxgMUb0#action=share
President, Univ. Professor Vera SIMOVSKA, MD., PhD
HEPA Macedonia National organziation for the promotion of
Health Enhancing Physical Activity

Skopje, 5 May 2019