The locality challenges facing the ‘levelling up’ of sport participation and health inequality in England

Downward, Paul, Inoue, Yuhei ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1983-6217, Kumar, Harish and Widdop, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0334-7053 (2024) The locality challenges facing the ‘levelling up’ of sport participation and health inequality in England. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. pp. 1-18. ISSN 1940-6940

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Abstract

In the context of the UK Government’s levelling up agenda, current sport policy seeks to reduce inequalities in sport participation, supported by investment in facilities. Drawing on a socio-ecological theoretical framework, this paper analyses a large-scale dataset measuring individual sport and fitness participation, local authority facility availability and level of multiple deprivation to examine the individual/compositional and locality/contextual influences on participation in sport and fitness activities for men and women in England. Multi-level regressions highlight the challenges faced for policy, arguing that scaled-up local action is needed to account for the interaction between individual factors, facility availability and area deprivation.