Changes in US Youth With Neighborhood Built Environment Supports for Physical Activity by Sociodemographic...

Neighborhood built environments (BE) can influence youth physical activity levels. There are no published national surveillance reports of changes of such BE attributes over time. This study aims to describe the prevalence of 4 types of neighborhood BE supports for youth physical activity and report changes over time from 2016-2017 to 2022-2023, overall and by sociodemographic subgroups.

Using adult proxy-reported data from the National Survey of Children's Health, we estimated prevalence with 95% confidence intervals of neighborhood sidewalks or walking paths, parks/playgrounds, libraries, and recreation centers among youth aged 6-17 years across 2016-2017, 2018-2019, 2020-2021, and 2022-2023 (n = 215,634), overall and by sociodemographic subgroups. For each neighborhood support, we presented the prevalence difference between 2016-2017 and 2022-2023 and tested for differences in magnitude of change between subgroups. We also tested linear and quadratic trends across all 4 timepoints.

From 2016-2017 to 2022-2023, the proportion of US youth with neighborhood sidewalks/walking paths or parks/playgrounds increased, while the proportion who have neighborhood libraries or recreation centers decreased. Changes over time were not consistent across sociodemographic subgroups. For example, increases in sidewalks and parks/playgrounds only occurred among high-income youth, whereas decreases in libraries and recreation centers only occurred among low-income youth.

These results provide important surveillance information on neighborhood BE supports for youth physical activity among various US sociodemographic groups, which can be used to prioritize policy and environmental interventions where needed most.