Physical Activity and Redesigned Community Spaces (PARCS) Study Diversity Supplement

 描述(由申请人提供)：建筑环境在促进身体活动和健康方面起着至关重要的作用。然而，公园作为建筑环境的一个关键属性与身体活动之间的联系仍然没有定论。该项目采用自然实验设计来评估社区公园倡议(CPI)对身体活动、公园使用、心理社会和精神健康以及社区福祉的影响。社区公园倡议是纽约市公园和娱乐部(NYC Parks)公园重新设计和翻新倡议。该项目将使用纵向设计和匹配的对照。纽约市公园已经在高优先级社区确定了134个极度需要资金的公园，并将开始陆续翻新公园。2016年底，第一波涉及55个社区的35个公园将关闭进行翻新；这些公园将于2017年底重新开放。从最初的这波浪潮中，20个干预公园被选为本研究的对象。干预公园社区已经与20个社会经济相似的公园社区进行了对照，这些社区在研究期间不会被翻新。这项研究将涉及两个目标。在目标1中，调查人员将比较干预和对照公园社区(定义为每个公园周围0.25英里半径)从基线到翻新后2.5年的PA总量和其他健康结果。我们假设，在干预中将观察到PA和健康水平的改善，但不会观察到控制社区。在AIM 2中，2018年接受改造并于2019年重新开放的另外10个公园社区将用于监测整治后1.5年干预效果的可复制性。这种组合设计增强了我们在自然实验中推断因果关系的能力。我们的目标是在每个公园社区招募和保留40名研究参与者，在自然减员后，目标1的参与者总数为1600人，目标2的参与者总数为400人。研究参与者将代表每个社区的两个不同的社会人口阶层：低收入住房和社区居民。衡量标准包括直接的公园观察和计划清单、公园质量、自我报告和GPS跟踪的公园使用情况、基于加速度计的身体活动、自我报告的心理社会健康和感知的社区健康。这项研究是迄今为止同类实验中规模最大的一次，它提供了一个难得的机会，可以提供强有力的证据，进一步了解公园与身体活动、心理社会和心理健康以及社区福祉之间的复杂关系。这些发现将为未来对以健康为导向的城市设计政策的投资提供参考，并为通过建成环境战略解决健康差距提供证据。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The built environment plays a critical role in promoting physical activity and health. The association between parks, as a key attribute of the built environment, and physical activity, however, remains inconclusive. This project employs a natural experiment design to assess the impact of the Community Parks Initiative (CPI), a New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) park redesign and renovation initiative, on physical activity, park usage, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing. The project will use a longitudinal design with matched controls. NYC Parks has identified 134 parks with extreme capital needs in high-priority neighborhoods and will begin renovating parks in waves. In late 2016, the first wave of 35 parks across 55 neighborhoods will close for renovations; these parks will reopen in late 2017. From this initial wave, 20 interventio parks have been selected for inclusion in this study. Intervention park neighborhoods have been matched to a control group of 20 socio-economically similar park neighborhoods that will not be renovated during the study. The study will address two aims. In Aim 1, investigators will compare total volume of PA and other health outcomes among residents in the intervention vs. control park neighborhoods (defined as .25 mile radius around each park) from baseline to 2.5 years post-renovation. We hypothesize that improvements will be observed in PA and health levels in intervention but not control neighborhoods. In Aim 2, an additional 10 park neighborhoods receiving renovation in 2018 and reopening in 2019 will be used to monitor replicability of intervention effects at 1.5 years post-renovation. This combined design enhances our ability to infer causality in a natural experiment. We aim to recruit and retain 40 study participants per park neighborhood, after attrition, for a total of 1600 participants in Aim 1 and 400 in Aim 2. Study participants will represent two distinct sociodemographic strata in each neighborhood: low-income housing and community- engaged residents. Measures include direct park observations and program checklists, park quality, self- reported and GPS-tracked park usage, accelerometry-based physical activity, self-reported psychosocial health, and perceived community wellbeing. The largest natural experiment of its kind to date, this study represents a rare opportunity to provide robust evidence to further our understanding of the complex relationship between parks and physical activity, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing. The findings will inform future investments in health-oriented urban design policies and offer evidence for addressing health disparities through built environment strategies.