[Promotion of physical activity among the elderly as an example of knowledge translation: How do scientific findings enter community practice?].

Background: Scientific findings can be an important source of knowledge for public health stakeholders involved in promoting physical activity, but several barriers hinder their use. Knowledge translation can simplify this process, but it requires the understanding of the stakeholder's needs.

Objectives: This qualitative study aims to describe how public health stakeholders access information and scientific findings, identify possible barriers, and highlight the needs of stakeholders in terms of presentation and processing.

Materials And Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve local- and state-level stakeholders from North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia working in the area of physical activity promotion. The interviewees were selected through purposive sampling. The interviews were evaluated using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The benefits of scientific findings are emphasized by the interviewees, but a lack of resources in combination with a flood of information, high complexity, and technical jargon complicate their application. There is a need for tailored preparation in the form of summaries, filter functions, elaboration of practice-relevant elements, and ways of provision.

Conclusions: To achieve successful knowledge translation, collaboration and interactive exchange between researchers, policymakers, and practice as well as a demand-oriented processing of scientific findings are central. Networking and bundling of knowledge on a platform are important tasks for the future.