Park Improvements and Park Activity A Natural Experiment

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. (Am J Prev Med 2012; 42(6):616-619) Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Journal of Preventive Medicine