The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and Exercise is Medicine® (EIM) staff compiled this reference list to serve as a publicly available resource highlighting scholarly work to make physical activity assessment and promotion a standard in clinical care, connecting patients with evidence-based physical activity resources for people everywhere of all abilities. Specifically, this reference list aims to:
1. Provide one place for individuals seeking evidence-based information on promoting physical activity in health
systems;
2. Inform individuals looking to integrate physical activity into their health systems or clinical practices and/or
connect patients to community-based physical activity resources;
3. Serve as a source of scholarly work for investigators developing manuscripts and grants on EIM-related topics.
To achieve these goals, this guide highlights scholarly work specifically related to the integration of physical activity
into health care-related settings. Articles are listed by alphabetical order of the first author – not chronologically. We
have also included the Direct Object Identifier (DOI), whenever available, or a website link for the article. Some,
but not all, articles are freely available without subscription to the journals.
Due to the overwhelming evidence on the health-enhancing benefits of physical activity across a wide array of
populations and health conditions, scholarly work on health benefits of physical activity are not included in this
guide. We focused more broadly on work related to physical activity promotion in health care settings to keep
the guide to a reasonable length. Thus, articles focusing on specific specialties or patient populations (i.e., patient
preferences for physical activity support in young cancer survivors) may not be included.
Lastly, we are certain even more eligible articles exist for this list that were not identified through our literature
searches. If you are aware of any work that should be included, please email a link to the article to
mstoutenberg@acsm.org. We view this EIM Reference List as a living document that will continue to be
updated as new EIM-related research is published.
We hope that you find the scholarly work highlighted in this guide beneficial in your research, educational, clinical
and/or advocacy efforts to promote the vision of Exercise is Medicine®!