Methods
Sample
Interviews were conducted with either the lead state
physical activity practitioner, as designated by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or
the person at the state health department most
knowledgeable about the organization’s physical activity
promotions and programs.
To obtain geographic representation,
we emailed and telephoned people in a convenience
sample of states from each of four US census
regions (defined elsewhere: http://www.census.gov/geo/
www/us_regdiv.pdf ).
Interviews were conducted between
July 2011 and March 2012. While we did not select
states by whether or not they had a state wide plan
that included physical activity, at the time of the interviews
all states in the sample had a state wide plan with
a focus on physical activity, usually within an obesity or
chronic disease prevention plan.