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

描述（由申请人提供）：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方面的作用，以及居民深入参与创建健康社区的必要性。公共卫生实践和以公园为基础的干预措施在促进公园振兴和在整个生命周期中广泛使用公园方面最有效，但证据较少。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，这是一种重要的资源，但往往被公共卫生从业人员所忽视。因此，迫切需要确定如何利用协作和资源共享来加强公园作为促进健康和预防疾病的场所。该项目将推动纽约和宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡的公园倡导者与学术中心合作开展研究的方式。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，制定一种共同的语言和共同的研究议程。我们的研究假设是：与三个群体——公园倡导者、社区居民和研究人员——的一系列会议将允许发展一种关于健康和公园的共同语言以及共同的研究议程。我们认为，公园和公共空间的改善将鼓励居民在身体、社交和公民活动方面更加活跃，从而减少对健康的负面影响，尤其是肥胖。此外，全年对公园的使用增加和活动的多样化将使这些空间更安全，暴力事件更少。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）和公园伙伴关系（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，我们将为我们关注的问题制定共同的语言和共同的研究议程。由此产生的长期CBPR议程将用于设计研究，以评估和衡量当前和未来社区参与开发的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）的增长、合作伙伴之间关系的强度和质量（谅解备忘录的内容）以及提出并成功资助的后续研究项目的数量来评估。我们的主题和CBPR方法受到公园倡导者和研究人员的共同兴趣的推动，他们希望了解公园如何成为结束健康差距的新生国家努力的一部分。

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.