Parks After Dark (PAD) is an evidence-based strategy that has demonstrated impacts on violence, chronic disease, and community well-being in underserved, gang impacted communities. PAD takes place during 9 summer weekends, and provides access to free recreational activities, including sports, arts and cultural programs, concerts and movies, and health and social service resources. PAD began at 3 Los Angeles County parks in 2010 and has since grown to an award-winning program at 33 parks that is funded by multiple sectors including public health, probation, mental health, and child and family services. PAD is led by Parks and Recreation with Public Health (DPH) a key partner providing technical assistance, evaluation, and health outreach. PAD provides a foundation for community outreach and implementation of several innovative strategies and service alignments, including gang intervention and safe passages, community coalition building, positive youth development programming, nontraditional mental health programming, and employment for system involved youth.

Methods:

DPH coordinated a mixed-method evaluation of PAD during the 2018 season including analysis of crime data, community and county service data, program implementation data, and surveys of PAD partners and participants. Analyses of crime and chronic disease impacts were conducted relative to comparison parks.

Outcomes:

During summer 2018, 386,000 participants attended PAD representing 72% of zip codes in the county. More than 4,000 programming hours were provided. PAD achieved an estimated reduction of 75.4 serious and violent crimes across all PAD park communities since 2010 relative to comparison parks. 89% of participants felt that PAD improved relationships between community and Deputy Sheriffs. Over 90% of participants indicated that PAD makes it easier to spend quality time with their family and get to know their neighbors better. PAD achieved and estimated cumulative cost savings of $3.4 million in 2018 due to reductions in chronic disease and violent crime, relative to the $3.9 million dollar budget.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

Programs like PAD demonstrate the value of parks to prevent community violence, reduce chronic disease, and improve overall community well-being. PAD demonstrates the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration to improve equity and the value of investing in prevention.