A collaborative project between the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Healthy Weight and NIHR Policy Research Unit in Healthy Ageing

Background

One in five people in England don’t get enough exercise each week. This increases their risk of health problems and shorter lives. Even small changes like regular walking can help.

When you go for a free NHS Health Check, you are sometimes asked to fill in a short questionnaire called the GPPAQ (General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire). It asks how much you move each week. The GPPAQ has been used for almost 20 years, but we need to know if it still a good way to check if a person is active and whether it’s the best tool for staff in general practice to use.

In this project, we will examine how the GPPAQ tool is used in primary care/community settings. We will also undertake a rapid review of international research to see how well the GPPAQ works compared to other tools. Once this is done, we will hold a workshop with health and physical activity experts, to talk about what we learned and decide what works best.

Our work will help us understand whether GPPAQ is the best tool to assess physical activity, and to consider what other tools might be good to use.

Aims and Objectives

We want to understand how staff in doctors’ surgeries in England are asking people about their daily exercise and which tools work best, to find out who needs to move more. Then, we’ll share our ideas with experts to help make a clear plan.

Workstream 1: Looking at Doctor’s Records

Aim: to understand how often and in what circumstances staff in general practices in England use the GPPAQ.

Workstream 2: Talking with Experts and Checking Other Tools

Aim: to identify which tools could be used instead of, or alongside, the GPPAQ.

Workstream 3: Meeting with a Group of Experts

Aim: to test our findings from workstreams 1 and 2 and invite critical appraisal from experts to inform our final report.

Methods

We will use several methods. First, we’ll look at which patients are asked to complete the GPPAQ questionnaire in GP surgeries, including how often and in what circumstances. We will look at data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) – a real-world database of patient records from GP practices that can be used for research. This piece of work will help us to understand what makes general practice staff more likely to use it.

Second, we will work with a group of experts who know about exercise and health and create a list of different tools which doctors could use to measure how active people are.  We will then assess which tools are the most useful, easy to use and effective. Once complete we will quickly review existing research to inform a policy briefing on tools for assessing physical activity.

Third, we will bring together a group of experts who will provide feedback on our findings to inform our final report.

Policy Relevance

This project will provide information on how the GPPAQ is used in general practice and help understand what other tools are available for assessing physical activity. This will inform policy teams and decision makers on which are the best tools for assessing physical activity in primary care settings.

Delivery dates

August 2025 – February 2026

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