Inter-city study of community engagement in parks, children and adolescent health

公共卫生文献支持接触自然和健康的重要性，安全公园在促进积极生活中的作用，以及居民深入参与创建健康社区的必要性。在促进公园振兴和公园在整个生命周期的广泛使用方面最有效的公共卫生做法和公园干预措施的证据较少。此外，公园的免费资源对穷人和少数民族社区的健康至关重要，但这些公园往往维护得最差。由于美国绝大多数城市都有大型城市公园，这是一个重要的资源，但往往被公共卫生从业人员忽视。因此，迫切需要确定如何利用合作和资源共享来加强公园作为促进健康和预防疾病场所的作用。该项目将推进来自纽约州纽约市和宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡的公园倡导者与学术中心合作进行研究的方式。为了启动这一研究伙伴关系，我们建议在未来三年内共同努力，制定共同的语言和共同的研究议程。我们的研究假设是：与公园倡导者、社区居民和研究人员这三个群体举行的一系列会议将有助于形成关于健康和公园的共同语言和共同的研究议程。我们认为，公园和公共空间的改善将鼓励居民在身体、社会和公民方面更加活跃，从而减少负面健康结果，特别是肥胖。此外，公园全年使用率的提高和活动的多样化，反过来又会使这些空间更安全，减少暴力。我们建议通过建立一个学术中心和三个公园倡导团体之间的现有关系来做到这一点：哥伦比亚青少年暴力预防中心、CLIMB、匹兹堡公园保护协会（PA）和公园合作伙伴（NY）。通过一系列社区论坛，主要利益相关者会议和CBPR咨询委员会座谈会，我们将为我们的关注和研究的共同议程制定一个共同的语言。由此产生的长期CBPR议程将用于设计研究，评估和衡量社区参与制定的当前和未来基于公园的干预措施的影响。该项目将通过记录CBPR咨询委员会（参与组织）的发展，合作伙伴之间关系的强度和质量（理解的基础）以及提出并成功资助的后续研究项目的数量进行评估。我们的主题和CBPR方法是由公园倡导者和研究人员的共同兴趣推动的，他们希望了解公园如何成为新生的国家努力的一部分，以结束健康差距。 公共卫生相关性：该项目与公共卫生有关，因为它将有助于开发利用公共资源-公园-促进社区一级健康的方法。针对个人的努力，以帮助减少肥胖或防止暴力是重要的，但不足以解决这两个健康问题。该项目关系到国家大型城市公园系统所服务的所有人。该项目与全国反对肥胖、积极生活、反对暴力和消除健康差距的运动有关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The public health literature supports the importance of exposure to nature and health, the role of safe parks in promoting active living and the need for deep resident engagement in the creation of healthy communities. There is less evidence on the public health practices and park-based interventions that are most effective in the promotion of parks revitalization and the wide-spread use of parks across the life span. Furthermore, the free resource of parks is critical to health of poor and minority neighborhoods but those parks are often least well maintained. Because large urban parks present in the vast majority of US cities, this is a significant resource, often overlooked by public health practitioners. Thus, there is a critical need to identify ways in which collaboration and resource-sharing can be used to enhance parks as a site of health promotion and disease prevention. This project will advance the ways in which parks advocates from New York City, NY, and Pittsburgh, PA, partner with an academic center to conduct research. In order to launch this research partnership, we propose to work together over the next three years to develop a common language and a common research agenda. Our research hypothesis is: a series of meetings with three groups - parks advocates, community residents and researchers - will permit the development of a shared language about health and parks and a shared research agenda. We believe that the improvement of parks and public spaces will encourage residents to become more physically, socially and civically active, resulting in the reduction in negative health outcomes, especially obesity. Furthermore, the year round increased use of parks and the diversification of activities will, in turn, make these spaces safer and less violence-ridden. We propose to do this by building upon existing relationships among an academic center and three parks advocacy groups: the Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention, CLIMB, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PA), and Partnerships for Parks (NY). Through a series of community forums, key stakeholders meetings and CBPR Advisory Board colloquia, we will develop a common language for our concerns and a common agenda for research. The resulting long-term CBPR agenda will be used to design studies that assess and measure the impact of current and future parks-based interventions developed with community participation. The project will be evaluated by documenting the growth of the CBPR Advisory Board (organizations involved), the strength and quality of the relationships among partners (content of Memoranda of Understanding) and the number of follow up research projects proposed and successfully funded. Our topic and CBPR approach are fueled by the shared interest of parks advocates and researchers in understanding how parks can be part of the nascent national effort to end health disparities. Public Health Relevance: This project is relevant to public health because it will help develop ways in which a publicly available resource - parks - can be used to promote health at the neighborhood level. Efforts geared at the individual to help reduce obesity or prevent violence are important but not sufficient to address these two health problems. This project is relevant to all the people served by the national system of large urban parks. This project has relevance for the national campaign against obesity, for active living, against violence, and for the elimination of health disparities.