This edited collection reflects debate about the motivations of national and local government intervention in policy making on public It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics.

Louise Mansfield, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Sport, Health and Social Sciences at Brunel University London, UK. Her research focuses on the relationship between sport, physical activity and public health. She is interested in partnership and community approaches to female involvement in physical activity and issues of health, wellbeing, inequality and diversity. She has led research projects for both sport and public health organisations. She sits on the editorial boards for Leisure Studies, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health and the International Review for the Sociology of Sport.

Joe Piggin, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at Loughborough University's School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences in the UK. Joe's research covers the areas of sport policy translation into marketing and programmes, health promotion at mega sports events, and physical activity policy.

Introduction: Sport, physical activity and public health 1. Bodies of knowledge: connecting the evidence bases on physical activity and health inequalities 2. Should we privilege sport for health? The comparative effectiveness of UK Government investment in sport as a public health intervention 3. The State and management of partnership arrangements in France: an analysis of the implementation of the 'Sport, Health and Well-being' plan 4. A political spectator sport or policy priority? A review of sport, physical activity and public mental health policy 5. Olympic sport and physical activity promotion: the rise and fall of the London 2012 pre-event mass participation 'legacy' 6. Group fitness instructors as local level health promoters: a Foucauldian analysis of the politics of health/fitness dynamic 7. Health, physical activity and the body: an inquiry into the lives of female migrant cleaners in Denmark 8. Are they 'worth their weight in gold'? Sport for older adults: benefits and barriers of their participation for sporting organisations 9 What difference does dance make? Critical conversations across dance, physical activity and public health 10. Examining the integration of sport and health promotion: partnership or paradox? 11. Resourcefulness, reciprocity and reflexivity: the three Rs of partnership in sport for public health research Research Notes 12. Exercise on referral: evidence and complexity at the nexus of public health and sport policy 13. The world turned upside down: sport, policy and ageing 14. The sociopolitics of sport, physical education, and school health in the United States