Assessment of the Safety of Children’s Outdoor Public Activity Spaces: The Case of Shanghai, China

Lili Qin, Meili Rui, Xinran Qian, Zhen Xu, Shuang Hu, Linlin Feng, Ting Zhu, Wei Xuan () and Tianfeng Lu ()
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Lili Qin: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Meili Rui: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Xinran Qian: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Zhen Xu: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Shuang Hu: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Linlin Feng: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Ting Zhu: School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Wei Xuan: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Tianfeng Lu: Sports and Health Research Center, Department of Physical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-21

Abstract: Children’s outdoor physical activity (PA) serves as a crucial mechanism for health development, but its safety is affected by urban space design and management. However, most existing studies focus on isolated risk factors or singular spatial typologies, which lack a comprehensive safety assessment framework. This study aims to construct a safety assessment system for children’s outdoor public activity spaces and explore safety optimization strategies. This study employs a mixed methods approach to systematically analyze 13 outdoor public activity spaces across Shanghai, utilizing NVivo 12 Plus for qualitative coding of the data. Based on the coding results, a questionnaire survey targeting parents of children under 12 years old (with a balanced gender ratio) was designed and administered, yielding 509 valid responses. A 32-indicator assessment system was finally constructed via principal component analysis (PCA). The assessment system encompasses seven dimensions: site facilities (24.0%), spatial conditions (16.1%), site management (13.5%), material conditions (13.0%), service facilities (12.8%), traffic and landscape (10.3%), and ground conditions (10.3%). This study provides a quantitative safety assessment instrument for designing child-friendly urban public activity spaces, which has important implications for improving the public health service system and promoting the construction of healthy cities in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords: physical activity; assessment indicator system; principal component analysis; child-friendly cities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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