Research article
Effects of Park Improvements on Park Use and Physical Activity: Policy and Programming Implications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.07.017Get rights and content

Background

Many assume that improving the quality and the perceived safety of facilities in parks and recreation centers is critical to attracting more users and increasing population physical activity. There are few studies in which these assumptions have been tested.

Purpose

This study aims to assess the impact of park improvements on park use and physical activity.

Methods

Five intervention parks and five matched comparison parks were studied by objectively measuring park use and collecting self-reports of park use by residents before and after park improvements. After using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities to count park users and measure their activity levels, and conducting household interviews and intercept surveys with park users, propensity score analyses were used to adjust for differences in respondents' characteristics between pre- and post-intervention and across conditions.

Results

Overall park use and physical activity declined in both intervention and control parks, with 39% of the decline directly attributable to fewer scheduled organized activities. Perceptions of park safety increased more in the intervention parks than in the comparison parks.

Conclusions

Improvements to parks may not automatically result in increased use and physical activity, especially when programming decreases. Multiple factors contribute to park use and need to be accounted for in future community-level interventions. Further, improving perceptions of safety alone is unlikely to result in increased park use.

Introduction

Many civic organizations and government agencies have lamented the low levels of physical activity and high levels of obesity that plague American adults and children and have called for stepped-up efforts to help citizens become healthier.1 According to a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey assessment using accelerometry, only 42% of children, 9% of teens, and less than 5% of adults meet national recommendations for physical activity.2 Multiple barriers to physical activity have been noted, including large distances between home, work, and school that require motorized transport; busy streets; lack of destinations to walk to; and insufficient park space. In addition, during the past several decades there have been insufficient investments in updating recreational facilities, and many believe that the lack of attractive and safe venues is a primary reason why it is difficult to increase levels of physical activity.3, 4

Some localities, however, do manage to allocate funds to renovate and improve public recreational spaces in local neighborhoods. In one city in Southern California, the citizens approved a bond measure that specifically allocated funds for upgrading and acquiring new open spaces for recreation. The plan was broad and was intended to improve more than 300 parks and open spaces. In addition, the bond mandated citizen participation and input in the design of new facilities and improvements. It is commonly believed that community participation in decision making results in improvements that meet local needs and preferences that simultaneously enhance feelings of ownership and local pride, resulting in greater success and better use of facilities.5 An opportunity for a natural experiment to improve local parks using community participation in the design served as the basis of the current study, which was aimed at determining the impact of the improvements on park use and the physical activity of park users.

Section snippets

Methods

The study was conducted in ten urban parks and their surrounding communities. Five intervention parks had been scheduled for major improvements with budgets in excess of $1,000,000 after December 2003, and each intervention park was matched with a similar park (i.e., comparison park) that was not slated to receive upgrades by the city. The selected comparison park was similar in size, features, and amenities, and it served a population with similar sociodemographic characteristics as its

Characteristics of Parks and Respondents

The ten parks were located in predominantly Latino and African-American and low-income neighborhoods (average 31% of households in poverty). The parks ranged from 3.4 to 16 acres (mean=8 acres) and served an average of 67,000 people within a 1-mile radius, and 210,000 people within a 2-mile radius. Parks contained an average of 12 physical activity areas, which included indoor gymnasiums and classrooms as well as baseball and softball diamonds; bleachers; basketball, handball, tennis, and

Discussion

Given the large investments in improving park facilities, the lack of increased use in the parks was disappointing. In two of the three parks with completely new facilities that did not replace or upgrade previous ones, there was a small increase in users. The numbers of users in the respective comparison parks that did not have new facilities, however, were still higher. The general decline in park use and in the amount of exercise reported by respondents over time is particularly distressing

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