Awareness, use, and impacts of school shared-use agreements to promote physical activity among adults in Los Angeles County

Shared use agreements that outline conditions for community use of school facilities are a potentially attractive policy approach to increasing physical activity in under-resourced areas. Despite growing interest and investment in this model, limited data are available on community awareness of and interest in schools as a place for physical activity, as well their population-level impacts.

This presentation will present results of data collected via an Internet panel survey in spring 2014 (n=1006) to examine a) the extent of and attitudinal and behavioral factors associated with perceived access to and use of schools for physical activity in Los Angeles County, and b) the association between access to shared use sites, exercise self-efficacy and physical activity. Weighted data were analyzed using logistic regression to assess associations between access to and use of schools and demographic, behavioral, and environmental factors. Negative binomial regression was used to test the association between access and physical activity.

Results suggest that over half (57.7%) of survey respondents reported access to shared use sites, but only a portion of these (30.3%)  reported using them in the past year.  Safety of school grounds and presence of onsite programming were positively associated with use.  No associations were found between exercise self-efficacy or physical activity and access to schools after adjusting for potential confounders.

 

Additional efforts may be needed to optimize community use of schools for physical activity. These results can help inform program planning and implementation in communities considering shared use policies and provide priority directions for future research.