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ParticipACTION

Also: Sport Participation Canada · The 60-year-old Swede

Canada's national physical activity communications organisation, set up in 1971 with federal funding, closed in 2001 after funding cuts and relaunched in 2007. Its 1970s ads (including the 1973 spot comparing a 30-year-old Canadian with a 60-year-old Swede) made it a household name; the relaunched organisation has run evaluated mass-media campaigns aimed first at parents of inactive children and later at adults.

Years
1971–now
Country
Canada
Topic
Physical activity
Asks people to
Start
Strategy
HumorSelf efficacySimple instructionSocial norms
Channel
AppEventsOutdoorPrintRadioSocial (paid)TVWebsite
Audience
AdultsGeneral publicParents
1971-2001: all Canadians. 2007-2014: parents (especially mothers) of inactive children aged 5-11. From 2018: inactive adults.

Evidence

ObservationalMixed

Original era (1971-2001): reviewed in a 2004 Can J Public Health supplement (Bauman et al.; Lagarde) as achieving very high public awareness, with population activity change hard to attribute. Relaunch: Think Again (2011) awareness was associated with parents' knowledge of guidelines, intentions and support behaviours (small effects, d about 0.16-0.31) but not with children meeting guidelines (Gainforth et al. 2016). Make Room for Play: 26% unaided and 45.9% prompted recall; 24% of parents with unaided recall versus 14% without tried active play with their children (Priebe et al. 2019). Seven-year follow-up: 82% prompted awareness, higher among educated, higher-income parents; awareness associated with outcome expectations and self-efficacy, negatively with leisure-time activity (Spence et al. 2018). Organisational capacity unchanged five years after relaunch (Faulkner et al. 2018). All cross-sectional recall comparisons; no comparison population.

Sponsor (who paid)

Credits (who made it)

Executions (individual ads)

Sources

  1. Bauman A et al. ParticipACTION: this mouse roared, but did it get the cheese? Can J Public Health 2004;95 Suppl 2 evaluation · 2004 · DOI 10.1007/BF03403998 · PMID 15250600
  2. Lagarde F. The mouse under the microscope: keys to ParticipACTION's success. Can J Public Health 2004 history · 2004 · DOI 10.1007/BF03403999 · PMID 15250601
  3. Gainforth HL et al. Evaluating the ParticipACTION "Think Again" campaign. Health Educ Behav 2016;43(4):434-41 evaluation · 2015 · DOI 10.1177/1090198115604614 · PMID 26377523
  4. Craig CL et al. An evaluation of the My ParticipACTION campaign to increase self-efficacy for being more physically active. J Health Commun 2015;20(9):995-1003 evaluation · 2015 · DOI 10.1080/10810730.2015.1012240 · PMID 26151315
  5. Priebe CS et al. Make Room for Play: an evaluation of a campaign promoting active play. J Health Commun 2019;24(1):38-46 evaluation · 2019 · DOI 10.1080/10810730.2019.1572838 · PMID 30712504
  6. Berry TR et al. The short-term effects of a mass reach physical activity campaign (ParticipACTION 150 Play List). BMC Public Health 2018;18:1300 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-6218-7 · PMID 30482163
  7. Spence JC et al. Awareness of ParticipACTION among Canadian adults: a seven-year cross-sectional follow-up. Health Promot Chronic Dis Prev Can 2018;38(4):179-186 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.24095/hpcdp.38.4.04 · PMID 29671967
  8. Faulkner G et al. Exploring the impact of the 'new' ParticipACTION: overview and introduction of the special issue. Health Promot Chronic Dis Prev Can 2018;38(4):153-161 history · 2018 · DOI 10.24095/hpcdp.38.4.01 · PMID 29671964
  9. Government of Canada: Canada's New Government re-launches ParticipACTION (2007) sponsor · 2007
  10. ParticipACTION (Wikipedia) reference
  11. Craig CL, Bauman A, Gauvin L et al. ParticipACTION: A mass media campaign targeting parents of inactive children; knowledge, saliency, and trialing behaviours. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2009 evaluation · 2009 · DOI 10.1186/1479-5868-6-88 · PMID 19995459
  12. Berry TR et al. Population-level evaluation of ParticipACTION’s 150 Play List: a mass-reach campaign with mass participatory events. International Journal of Health Promotion and Education 2019 evaluation · 2019 · DOI 10.1080/14635240.2019.1695527
  13. Craig CL et al. Testing the hierarchy of effects model: ParticipACTION's serial mass communication campaigns on physical activity in Canada. Health Promot Int 2010 evaluation · 2010 · DOI 10.1093/heapro/dap048 · PMID 19875461
  14. Spence JC et al. ParticipACTION: awareness of the participACTION campaign among Canadian adults--examining the knowledge gap hypothesis and a hierarchy-of-effects model. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 2009 evaluation · 2009 · DOI 10.1186/1479-5868-6-85 · PMID 19995456

Research notes

Credits for 2014-2024 fetched from strategyonline.ca pages 2026-10-22; Keith McKerracher from Wikipedia (fetched). The agency behind the 1970s-1990s ads and the 2011 Think Again campaign (JWT was the prior agency per Strategy, years not given) is not confirmed. Agency for 'Let's Make Room to Move' (2025) not stated in the article opened. The 2007 government release URL came from search and was not opened. Papers' details from PubMed metadata. Craig 2009 added 2026-10-22 (openalex-deep queue; DOI checked on Crossref and PMID via NCBI esummary 2026-10-22): prompted recall 57%; recall associated with knowledge, saliency and trying new activities. Evidence unchanged. Evaluation sources added 2026-10-22 (citation snowballing / helpline pass): Berry 2019, Craig 2010, Spence 2009; evidence level and outcome unchanged.

Record cases/participaction.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign