Adapted Physical Activity Policies for Children and Adolescents in Brazil: Extension of the Para Report Card Brazil

Abstract

Brazil is a country member of the Para Report Card, and Brazilian researchers have frequently published information on physical activity of children and adolescents. The current study aimed to analyze the policies for the promotion of adapted physical activity to Brazilian children and adolescents with disabilities. Official government information on adapted physical activity was analyzed from the official websites. Policies were analyzed based on the Para Report Card benchmarks, and after that we used the principles of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to analyze the information. Adapted physical activity is not the main focus of any of the many policies to promote physical activity for children and adolescents. Based on the Para Report Card initiative, the score for this indicator in Brazil is D. Brazil needs to develop specific policies to promote physical activity adapted to the pediatric population with disabilities.

“WOT” Do We Know and Do About Physical Activity of Children and Adolescents With Disabilities? A SWOT-Oriented Synthesis of Para Report Cards

“…Local teams that participated in the Para Report Cards within this special issue were asked to include interpretations related to their report cards' grades, and it was recommended to use a SWOT analysis framework. Specifically, submitted manuscripts from Brazil (Silva & da Silva, 2022), Canada (Arbour-Nicitopoulos et al, 2022), Finland (Asunta et al, 2022), France (Aubert, Verdot, et al, 2022), Hong Kong (Sit, Huang, et al, 2022), Ireland (Ng, Healy, et al, 2022), Israel (Hutzler et al, 2022), Lithuania (Pozeriene et al, in press), South Korea (Lee et al, 2022), Spain (Lo ´pez-Gil et al, in press), and the United States (Stanish et al, 2023) were collated for this synthesis. Documents submitted at the time of auditor review were used for Chile, Philippines (Kang et al, 2022), and Poland.…”

“…The reference to participation in community sports programs depicted different perspectives across (Ahead of Print) countries or jurisdictions. For example, the Brazilian team acknowledged the "absence of at least one program/action with main focus on promoting adapted physical activity" (Silva & da Silva, 2022). In contrast, Hong Kong reported "increasing numbers of innovative and evidence-based PA interventions in the community" (Sit, Aubert, et al, 2022;Sit, Huang, et al, 2022).…”

“…In Finland, the absence of experts from sports clubs was documented, and researchers from Lithuania noticed a "slow change of stereotypical attitudes towards CAWD" (Pozeriene et al, in press). In contrast, Brazil reported "availability of qualified personnel to supervise [sport] actions [with CAWD]" (Silva & da Silva, 2022). Nevertheless, the outcomes of a recently published quantitative survey (Healy, 2022) indicated that individuals who report having a disability were significantly less likely to receive a positive membership or personal training response from both the autonomous and chain fitness centers.…”