{"doi":"10.4314/ahs.v23i2.66","title":"Exploring the barriers and facilitators towards physical activity among church members in Lagos, Nigeria: a qualitative study","abstract":"Background: Physical inactivity is substantially linked to the rise in the global burden of non-communicable diseases. Faith-based organizations are recognized as potential partners for sustainable health interventions. Objective: This study aims to explore the facilitators and barriers towards physical activity among adult church members in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: Sixteen focus group discussions (n-163) were conducted among adult male and female church members in twelve Anglican churches. The discussions were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim and analysed along with the field notes for themes using sequential approach with the aid of the Dedoose® software. Results: Individual facilitators of PA included self-discipline, and personal habits. Individual barriers were laziness, ill-health, fear of injury and pre-existing health conditions. Organizational facilitators included biblical verses promoting PA, while deterring factors were lack of safe spaces for PA and poor knowledge among church leadership. The community-level facilitators included pro-physical activity cultural practices, while the prevailing practice hiring house-helps, high costs of gym membership and gender norms discouraging men from participating in household chores served as deterring community-level factors. Environmental facilitators were the availability of safe spaces for PA while deterring factors were city living and high traffic density. Conclusion: Several multi-level factors influence physical activity among church members. While it is pertinent to address personal factors, family and community factors also promote PA, therefore, group-level interventions may be warranted. Strategies that address the socio-cultural norms that serve as barriers to PA should also be included in the design of church-based PA programmes.","journal":"African Health Sciences","year":2023,"id":373608,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9058,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":910287,"name":"Omoladun Olukemi Odediran","orcid":"0000-0003-0677-8182","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334522,"name":"Charles R. Rogers","orcid":"0000-0002-3571-8229","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371014,"name":"Folasade Ogunsola","orcid":"0000-0001-7734-685X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":436326,"name":"Kolawole S. Okuyemi","orcid":"0000-0002-5342-7986","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":42375,"name":"Oluwakemi Ololade Odukoya","orcid":"0000-0001-7199-3300","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":28,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:16:07.080027Z","pmid":"38223576","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}