A Natural Experiment: Results of Community-Designed Park Improvements on Park Use and Physical Activity

The objective of this study was to assess if built environment changes to two suburban parks that involved extensive community engagement and physical activity programming increased park use and physical activity. This study employed a natural experiment evaluation design where community engagement informed the redesign of two neighborhood parks. Community engagement in the redesign of the parks was tracked as was the diversity of the partners on the steering committee and participation by community members in the process. Before and after park improvements, data were collected using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) instrument to measure change in use and activity level in each park. Park use increased at both parks, but physical activity levels did not significantly improve. The number of park visitors observed increased by 53% and 50%, respectively. Both parks had increased usage during evening hours when the family programming was the greatest. This study has several implications for policy and practice. First, this study suggests that community engagement can play a role in redesigning a park and likely leads to increased awareness and use of neighborhood parks. Second, while park use increased, simply adding new features to a park may not immediately increase physical activity. Additional efforts need to be made to activate the park and increase physical activity. Third, practitioners should not discount the value of building park awareness that increases park use as it may be a first step to increasing physical activity.