The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute’s Physical Activity and Sport Monitoring Program (PASMP) is internationally recognized as a comprehensive surveillance system to guide and assess the population impact of policy in the area of physical activity, recreation, and sport.

The PASMP takes a population health approach to studying the levels of physical activity and sport for the population as a whole, and by looking within the context of everyday life. So, for example, this can mean studying how people get to work or school (e.g., active vs inactive transportation), types of activities done in the workplace (e.g., sitting, standing or lifting heavy objects), and the types of activities people participate in during their leisure time (e.g., whether they play soccer or do chores after school, whether they participate on a community hockey team, or if they like to garden or play outdoors with the kids on the weekend). Not only do we study the actual behaviours of being active or not, but we also examine the environments where people can be active. This can include home, at school, at work, or in the community, in order to see what factors in these important settings can help or prevent people from being active. Our research also explores the role that key sport and recreation organizations and governments have in impacting participation rates through their programs and policies. All of this research is collected and systematically analyzed and informs CFLRI’s key mission of knowledge creation.