Adult inactivity rates increase in Hertfordshire

In the recently published results of the Active Lives Adult Survey (November 2022-23), Sport England report that 29.5 million adults in England are playing sport or taking part in physical activity every week.  

Since the survey started in 2015-16, the number of active adults has increased by two million. Nationally, adults aged 75+ continue to drive the growth in activity levels with an increase of just over 100,000 (1.6%) adults aged 75+ who are active, compared to 12 months ago. However, Nick Pontefract, Sport England Chief Strategy Officer reminds us that:  

“We cannot be complacent; every day, every week and every month we start again from zero and our collective job is to ensure that everyone in the country finds it easy and enjoyable to be active.” 

 

Herts Sport & Physical Activity Partnership (HSP), commissioned insight specialists Press Red to further analyse the Active Lives data for Hertfordshire. 

Against the positive national trend, adult inactivity rates have increased in Hertfordshire with 21.9% of adults in the county now reported as being inactive, that is doing less than 30 mins of physical activity per week. Broxbourne now has the highest adult inactivity rates within Hertfordshire (28.8%)​ and North Herts has seen a significant increase in inactivity (+8.0%). Watford (-5.9%) and St Albans (-4.5%) have seen the biggest improvements in the last 12 months. All other LAs have seen an increase in inactivity. 

This national increase that everyone delivering, enabling and supporting sport and physical activity should be rightly proud of, however HSP recognises that there is still significant work to be done in Hertfordshire to enable long term, generational shifts in attitudes to physical activity. 

Further information can be found in the full Sport England Active Lives report or in the Press Red Headline Analysis - Adult Active Lives Headlines 2022-23.

If you would like to find out more, please contact Orla Moore, Evaluation & Insight Lead at HSP, o.moore4@herts.ac.uk.