Brief report
Park Improvements and Park Activity: A Natural Experiment

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Background

Parks are an important setting for leisure-time physical activity. Understanding how to attract residents to parks and encourage park users to be physically active is an important public health initiative. Natural experiments are a research priority for investigating whether changes to the physical environment affect physical activity; however, natural experiments involving parks have rarely been conducted.

Purpose

This natural experiment examined whether improvements to a park in Victoria, Australia, increased its use and park-based physical activity of users.

Methods

Observational data were collected on park use and park-based activity among park users at the intervention park and a control park at three time points; baseline (T1, August 2009); post-improvement (T2, March 2010); and 12 months after baseline (T3, August 2010). At each time point, observations were undertaken during three 1.5-hour periods each day on 9 days. Analyses were conducted in 2011.

Results

In the intervention park, there were significant increases from pre- to post-improvement in the number of park users (T1=235, T3=985) and the number of people observed walking (T1=155, T3=369) and being vigorously active (T1=38, T3=257). At the control park, counts of usage decreased over the same period and no differences in walking or vigorous activity were observed.

Conclusions

Improving the features of a local neighborhood park may lead to increased usage and physical activity.

Introduction

Exposure to parks has a positive effect on health,1, 2 and parks are important settings for physical activity.3 It is important to understand how to attract residents to parks and encourage park users to be physically active, particularly in disadvantaged neighborhoods where residents are at an increased risk of inactivity and associated poor health.4, 5, 6 Observational studies in the U.S. have shown that more than half of park users engage in sedentary behavior (i.e., primarily sitting) in the park.7, 8 Further, park aesthetics and specific features have been shown to be associated with park visitation and physical activity within the park.9, 10, 11, 12

Natural experiments are a research priority for investigating causal associations between the built environment and physical activity.13 Because of the financial costs and logistic challenges, research in this area is scarce,14, 15 and few studies have focused on neighborhood parks.16 An opportunity to conduct a natural experiment in Victoria, Australia, presented through collaboration with a local government that was planning to improve a neighborhood park. This represented an opportunity to examine whether improvements to park facilities and amenities led to changes in (1) park use; (2) the active (or sedentary) nature of activities undertaken in the park; and (3) whether any observed changes were maintained over time.

Section snippets

Methods

A park was refurbished (intervention park) and identical measures were conducted at the intervention park (size: 25,200 m2) and a control park (size: 10,000 m2) before and after park refurbishment. Pre-refurbishment, the intervention park was primarily an open space area with few amenities. The refurbishment took place in November–December 2009 and included the establishment of a fenced leash-free area for dogs (12,800 m2); an all-abilities playground; a 365-m walking track; a barbecue area;

Results

Table 1 shows the counts of park users. There was a significant interaction between park and time for the total counts of park users, F(2, 154)=14.99, p<0.0005; counts of people walking in the park, F(2, 154)=11.70, p<0.0005; and counts of people being vigorously active, F(2, 154)=4.98, p=0.008. At the intervention park, there were more people observed in the park at T2 and T3, compared to T1; however, at the control park, there were fewer people observed at T3 compared to T2 and no differences

Discussion

The current study demonstrated that improving an existing park resulted in an overall increase in park use across genders and all age groups, and an increase in the counts of park users walking and being vigorously active. Importantly, increases were observed immediately post-intervention, with further increases observed at T3, demonstrating that visits to the refurbished park continued to increase over time. The current results are consistent with U.S. studies14, 15 that observed increases in

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