Do State Comprehensive Planning Statutes Address Physical Activity?: Implications for Rural Communities

Lisa M. Charron, Chloe Milstein, Samantha I. Moyers, Christiaan G. Abildso and Jamie F. Chriqui
Additional contact information
Lisa M. Charron: Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Chloe Milstein: School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
Samantha I. Moyers: Department of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, School of Public Health, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Christiaan G. Abildso: Department of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, School of Public Health, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Jamie F. Chriqui: School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 22, 1-25

Abstract: Less than one-quarter of U.S. adults meet physical activity (PA) recommendations, with rural residents less likely to be active than urban residents. The built environment has been identified as a potential facilitator of PA and local comprehensive plans are a foundational tool for guiding the development of the built environment. The purpose of this study was therefore to understand the current landscape of comprehensive planning state statutes related to PA and rural communities. We used primary legal research methods to identify, compile, and evaluate all 50 state comprehensive planning statutes for items related to PA and conditional mandates based on population size of local jurisdictions. The presence of population-conditional planning mandates and the inclusion of PA-related items was analyzed by state-level rurality using Fisher’s exact tests. Our analyses demonstrated that (1) broader PA-related items were addressed in state statutes more often than more specific PA-related items; (2) when PA-related items were addressed, they were most likely to be mandated, subsumed elements; (3) several PA-related items were less likely to be addressed in the most rural states and/or conditionally mandated for jurisdictions meeting minimum population requirements; and (4) only two states addressed PA directly and explicitly in their comprehensive planning statutes.

Keywords: physical activity; rural; policy; comprehensive plan; built environment; urban planning; state statute; legal epidemiology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12190/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12190/ (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:18:y:2021:i:22:p:12190-:d:683807

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 ().