Walking the Way to Health Wales. Evaluation Phase 2 – Implementation. Final Report

The Walking the Way to Health Wales (WW2H) Scheme aimed to increase health and well-being by promoting regular exercise through the activity of walking. There was one grant-aided project per Unitary Authority area (22 in total), as well as a small number of non grant-aided projects. The first projects began in 2003. The evaluation began in 2005.
The specific targets of the scheme were:
⊗ 80,000 people walking who were from areas of poor health or who were previously inactive
⊗ improved health and well-being of participants as a result
⊗ small-scale improvements on the ground to make local areas more accessible and safe for walking
⊗ training and support for every professional and volunteer involved
⊗ the implementation of an accreditation scheme to recognise good quality projects
⊗ the espousal of the WW2H model by the health mainstream in Wales, and the receipt of mainstream funding from 2006 onwards
The accreditation scheme was not implemented and does not constitute part of this report. Neither “80,000 people walking” nor “inactive” were clearly defined in these targets. This evaluation report has interpreted these targets as follows. “80,000 people walking” has been interpreted as indicating the targeted total impact of the scheme, that is both direct participants and indirect participants (see section 4.1.1 for elaboration). “Inactive” has been defined as people whose activity levels were below the recognised level for health, that is, less than 150 minutes per week of activity at an intensity of moderate or above.
In Phase 1 of the evaluation, researchers from the University of Wales Aberystwyth proposed five possible methods to guide the evaluation of the WW2H project. These methods were detailed in The Walking the Way to Health Wales Evaluation Phase 1 – Framework report and included:
 Option A, which was designed to collect data on the size and participation rates of each local project
 Option Bi, which was designed to collect data on participants’ health (physical and mental) and local projects’ stages of development in addition to that collected in option A
 Option Bii, which was designed to collect the information from option Bi via the use of a central evaluation body
 Option C, which extended option Bii by collecting process and management data via a series of workshops with local project coordinators
 Option D, which involved a randomised control trial
Option C was selected, and the next section presents details about how the evaluation was implemented. Data collection occurred over 3 rounds and this final report has been preceded by three interim reports. This final report provides cumulative totals for the periods of data collection and, where possible, totals also include data from 2003 and 2004. These data help show the extent to which the scheme’s overall targets were achieved. Data from each constituent project are included in the appendix A.
Totals have not been included across the three rounds of data collection because these were not undertaken at regular intervals and so direct comparison of the numbers from the three rounds is not meaningful as a measure of the rate of activity in the various categories. In addition, totals for each local project at each round of data collection would be difficult to interpret given the varying stages of development and life spans of individual projects.