The Relationships between Park Quality, Park Usage, and Levels of Physical Activity in Low-Income, African American Neighborhoods

Megan Knapp, Jeanette Gustat, Revonda Darensbourg, Leann Myers and Carolyn Johnson
Additional contact information
Megan Knapp: Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Jeanette Gustat: Department of Epidemiology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Revonda Darensbourg: Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Leann Myers: Department of Global Biostatistics and Data Science, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Carolyn Johnson: Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Parks can be an important, low-cost neighborhood resource to increase physical activity and reduce overweight and obesity. The quality of parks, however, may impact use. This study used observational data to examine the relationships between park quality, park usage and levels of physical activity among users in 31 parks within low-income, African American neighborhoods. Relationships between park use and park characteristics (signs of disorder, attractiveness, and number of activity settings) varied by gender and user activity level. No variables of interest were significant for overall number of male users; whereas, disorder and attractiveness were significant for overall number of female users. Parks with signs of disorder were associated with 49% fewer female users (IRR = 0.51, 95% CI = (0.34–0.77)) and attractive parks with 146% more female users (IRR = 2.46, 95% CI = (1.39–4.33)). Similar significant relationships were found among active but not sedentary female users. Communities may consider increasing park maintenance and addressing attractiveness in existing parks as a relatively low-cost environmental strategy to encourage park use, increase physical activity, and reduce the burden of obesity, especially among women in low-income, African-American communities.

Keywords: parks; neighborhoods; physical activity; African American; built environment; disorder (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/85/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/85/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2018:i:1:p:85-:d:193983

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().