Olympics: The public health legacy
Wednesday 17 June 2009
13.45-15.00
Plenary Session 5
- Chair: Paul Johnstone, Regional Director of Public Health from NHS Yorkshire and Humber
- Richard Budgett, Medical Director, 2012 Olympics
- Brian McCloskey, Regional Director for London, Health Protection Agency
- Bob Stonebrook, Physical Activity Project Manager, Department of Health
The public health legacy of the Olympics – a shot in the dark?
The afternoon plenary session on the Olympics was packed with facts and figures. Richard Budgett, a previous Olympic winner from the 1984 Los Angeles Games, outlined the impressive preparations underway for the 2012 Games, including an Olympics polyclinic for the 10,500 athletes and 3,000 medical staff volunteering at the event. He stressed that public health will be an integral part of the London Games.
Planning is key for the Olympics organisers and the Health Protection Agency (HPA), Brian McCloskey told the conference. Steps that the HPA is taking to prepare for the Games include such far-ranging eventualities as preparedness on food and water safety in the Olympic village (with its 70,000 residents), and ‘real time’ surveillance in case of, for instance, a biological terrorist attack. He concluded by saying that the Olympics aren’t just about health but also about politics and about the wider legacy: the national reputation hangs on the Games’ success.
The conference also heard from Bob Stonebrook, who talked about the different government initiatives to get the public moving such as ‘Walking the Way to Health’ and the pilot ‘Blue Gym’ project to encourage sporting activities in conserved inland and coastal waters. He highlighted that the government is committed to helping at least two million more people in England to be active by 2012.
A lot of work is going on to create a safe, spectacular and successful sporting event, but whether there will be an impact on the public’s health post-Games – for instance through an increase in the number of people taking part in physical activity – is unclear. The audience challenged the panel on the matter and asked whether we were missing an opportunity to broaden out the idea of what the public health legacy could be. One delegate asked the panel about the wider health benefits of, for example, the volunteering opportunities that the Olympics will create, as a route to community cohesion and participation, and perhaps even to employment. Another delegate raised the potential for the ‘feel good’ factor that the event will generate in the more disadvantaged communities, and how it could be used as a catalyst to improving mental health. The panel agreed that more opportunities should be explored. However, for the moment, the public health legacy of the Olympics is, in Bob Stonebrook’s words, ‘a shot in the dark’.