The relevance of the dissertation is due to the fact that the modern European strategy "Health in the XXI century" and the WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity and Health 2018-2030 call on national governments and local governments to focus public administration on the development of the non-medical sector in the public health system. This issue has become particularly acute in the context of the long-running COVID-19 pandemic, as the overcrowding of national health networks has shifted the preventive content of health programs to the non-medical space, where the management of social health dominants is based on lifestyle modifications. In particular, the WHO Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health initiative calls on national governments to actively implement measures to organize and support physical activity as an effective way of primary prevention of non-communicable diseases. Since 2016, Ukraine has also joined this global movement, but the current theoretical and methodological basis is clearly insufficient to achieve the appropriate level of public administration efficiency in the field of health-improving physical activity.
The research novelty of the dissertation lies in the fact that this work presents a theoretical justification of the physical activity area as an independent field for local government activities, and on this basis highlights the conceptual trends for improvement of organizational and legal management mechanisms aimed to improve public health.
This thesis, for the first time, clarifies and comprehensively substantiates the systemic and institutional characteristics of public administration of local governments in the field of health-improving physical activity, which include international and national dimensions of legal implementation (Association Agreement with the EU, National Strategy and National Action Plan for the development of health-improving physical activity, and legislative regulation of local self-government); problem-oriented institutional environment headed by the National Coordinator (Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine) and objects of targeted health-forming influence (children, youth) that interact in the main social spheres (education, training, leisure, work, health care) and implemented on the basis of efficient application of public administration mechanisms (legal, institutional, financial and economic, coordination, socio-psychological, information and communication, mechanisms of research support, monitoring, and evaluation).
The obtained research results of the dissertation allowed to improve the conceptual provisions on the structural and functional design of public administration by local governments in megacities of Ukraine regarding the development of health-improving physical activity in the context of European integration paradigm management, which is based on competence-oriented approach (motor competence), environmental approach (well-developed health-improving infrastructure of the territorial community), and innovation-oriented approach (targeted health-improving programs, digitalization and serviceability of health services for the residents).
The research achievement of the dissertation is the development of approaches to identification of five levels of state regulation of the health-improving physical activity sphere development in Ukraine: global regulation (WHO strategies and guidelines, international agreements ratified by Ukraine), constitutional regulation (Articles 1, 3, 23, 27, 33, 49, 50); general and special normative-legal regulation (laws, decrees of the President of Ukraine, normative-legal acts of the government and other central executive bodies), and self-government regulation (Law of Ukraine On local self-government in Ukraine). The last level of regulation is provided not only by local authorities, but also by citizens themselves as subjects of public administration in the field of health-improving physical activity.
Based on examination of international administrative practices expertise, the key factors of efficiency of state-administrative activity in the field of health-improving physical activity of the population have been defined. They include the existence of a state body for the management in the field of physical culture and sports (with allocation of a full-time position of a coordinator on health-improving physical activity matters, which are public administration innovations in Norway and Poland); availability of a national strategy and a local target program for the development of physical culture and sports with a separate area of health-improving physical activity at the state and local levels of government; and proper communication of public authorities and local governments with public organizations, business partners and citizens as the main customers of services in the field of health-improving physical activity.
