This special issue addresses the complex reality of the relationship between sport clubs, their stadia and health. Businesses have been challenged by government and the public to operate more ethically and sustainably. Sport has not been isolated from this pressure and in recent times we have seen sport shift towards tackling a range of social agendas. A significant interest has been in the role of stadium management. Specifically, sport stadia have begun to operationalize themselves as health promoting settings to deliver on health and wellbeing outcomes. The Healthy Stadia agenda, which has been spearheaded by the European Healthy Stadia Network, advocates a holistic approach to using sports clubs to improve the health of local communities and those who interact with stadia on both match-days and through auxiliary activities. Primary concerns include: healthier catering (Ireland and Watkins 2010), unhealthy sponsorship (Sherrif et al. 2009), sports-club and foundation-led community physical activity and health engagement (Hunt et al., 2014; Parnell & Richardson, 2014), smoke-free policies (Philpott and Sagar 2014) and more.
This special issue seeks to examine the relationship between sport clubs (both professional and amateur), stadia and health promotion through a collection of papers aligned to philosophical, political, environmental and practical interventions enabled through sport stadia settings to improve levels of health literacy and increase healthy behaviours. This will be achieved through the encouragement of articles and submissions that discuss applied, practical and empirical experiences of a range of authors and applied practitioners researching and working on the Healthy Stadia agenda (please see the article options below). We expect all contributions to be focused on sport-club-stadia specified health outcomes rather than broader sport-for-all or participation based interventions or initiatives. Contributions may also be related to events, mega-events (i.e. UEFA European Football Championships, Olympic and Para-Olympic Games or the World Rugby World Cup), or come from Leagues, National Governing Bodies or individual sports clubs (both professional and amateur).
In addition, contributors to the special issue would have the opportunity to present at 4th European Healthy Stadia Conference (October 2016, further details to be confirmed).
Timeline: Submission of all articles on 30 September 2015 by 5pm – via email to d.parnell@leedsbeckett.ac.uk. For more information on the Healthy Stadia Network, see the website here.
Publication Options
Research articles: 3000-5000 words.
See journal guidelines for general information here
Short communications: 500-2500 words.
A short communication paper may be used if you are working with a hot topic and have discovered something of significant contribution to the research literature. A short communication may publish preliminary results, but may also discuss a particularly topical and relevant issue related to the Healthy Stadia agenda.
A Commentary: 300-1000 words
The purpose of commentaries within this Special Issue are for researchers and applied practitioners to offer a personal perspective on the Healthy Stadia agenda. This may be to celebrate, challenge and/or offer perspective on theory, policy and practice related to the Healthy Stadia agenda. Similarly, a commentary may offer a research informed call for action.
Contemporary policy debate: 2000-5000 words
A contemporary policy debate would involve a carefully argued position statement on a specific topical issue related to the Healthy Stadia agenda. The purpose of these submissions would be to foster debate and extend the scope of discussion on specific topics.
Personal research reflections: 500-2000 words
The structure of this would be as follows; provide a research informed contextualisation and background of your personal reflection that outlines its importance and contribution to the Healthy Stadia agenda, with reference to originality, rigour and/or impact (written in third person). This should be followed by the main body, containing your personal reflection, which can be within indented text (written in first person). A final section should provide a summary of the personal reflection and make any conclusions [including future research recommendations] (written in third person).
Personal applied reflections: 500-2000 words
The structure of this would be as follows; provide a background section that outlines the context to your personal reflection that details its importance and contribution to the Healthy Stadia agenda (written in third person). This should be followed by the main body, containing your personal reflection, which can be within indented text and (written in first person). A final section should be provided to summarise the personal reflection and make any conclusions [including future research recommendations] (written in third person).
PhD-student reflections: 1000-2000 words
PhD students have a wealth of experience on the realities of researching [and in some cases working] on research projects related to the Healthy Stadia agenda. With this in mind, we encourage PhD-student reflections that can report on their research. This may offer insight related to the challenges of data collection ‘in the field’ or offer insight into forthcoming research.
