Reviewing interventions delivered to whole communities: learnings and recommendations for application to policy, practice and evidence development

*This article is free to read on the publisher's website*\ud\udSeveral reviews within The Cochrane Library address interventions designed to promote physical activity and exercise.1–3 Interventions investigated in these reviews have generally sought to increase the physical activity of individuals or specific groups of people. A new review published by the Cochrane Public Health Group entitled ‘Community-wide Interventions for Increasing Physical Activity’,4 examines the effectiveness of interventions that aim to improve the physical activity levels of an entire community.\ud\udWe were particularly interested in understanding the effectiveness of such approaches, but also whether they have an impact on inequalities, have potential to be sustainable and are cost-effective. In doing so, one of the most important contributions of this review is considerations and recommendations for the advancement of methods for developing, conducting and evaluating complex interventions, and seeking to synthesize findings relevant for programme development and policy-making. This paper briefly highlights some of these issues