Environmental factors impacting urban adolescents' use of parks for physical activity: An examination of objective and perceived measures

Background: The evidence base is growing to support the impact of the built environment on physical activity. There is, however, limited research involving minority adolescents who have disproportionately low levels of physical activity.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine associations between park use by urban minority adolescents and objective and perceived measures of their physical and social environments.

Methods: Survey data assessing park use, neighborhood crime, and park availability, quality, and use by family and friends were collected from 350 high school students in Baltimore, Maryland. Objective measures of neighborhood park availability and crime were created using Geographical Information Systems data. Logistic regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses that more park use is associated with a greater number of available parks, less neighborhood crime, higher park quality, and greater park use by family and friends.

Results: The results showed that, with the exception of neighborhood crime, perceptions were associated with park use. Adolescents reporting available parks in their neighborhood were significantly more likely to use parks for physical activity than those who did not report available parks. Perceptions of greater park quality and park use by family and friends were both significantly positively associated with park use. Objective measures of neighborhood crime and park availability were not associated with park use.

Conclusions: Measures of the perceived park environment were associated with park use while objective measures were not. These findings suggest that policy and programmatic efforts to promote physical activity address perceptions of available facilities.