The locality challenges facing the 'levelling up' of sport participation and health inequality in England

In the context of the UK Government’s levelling up agenda, current sport policy seeks to reduce inequalities in sport participation, supported by investment in facilities. Drawing on a socio-ecological theoretical framework, this paper analyses a large-scale dataset measuring individual sport and fitness participation, local authority facility availability and level of multiple deprivation to examine the individual/compositional and locality/contextual influences on participation in sport and fitness activities for men and women in England. Multi-level regressions highlight the challenges faced for policy, arguing that scaled-up local action is needed to account for the interaction between individual factors, facility availability and area deprivation.