ReviewPreventive medicine2016
Park characteristics, use, and physical activity: A review of studies using SOPARC (System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities).
Review in Preventive medicine, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of park-based interventions on health-related outcomes: A systematic review.Preventive medicine · 2021Pooled it
- The mediating role of perceived crime in gender and built environment associations with park use and park-based physical activity among park users in high poverty neighborhoods.Preventive medicine · 2019Trial
- Promoting physical activity in high-poverty neighborhood parks: A cluster randomized controlled trial.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2017Trial
- Gender Disparities in Park Use and Physical Activity among Residents of High-Poverty Neighborhoods in Los Angeles.Women's health issues : official publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's HealthTrial
- Long-term impacts of co-designed sustainable park improvements on physical activity and other wellbeing behaviours: a 7-year natural experimental study in a deprived urban area.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026Article
- Associations between park visitation and physical, mental and social health among older adults.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Association between hypertension prevalence and neighborhood characteristics in Japan using combined claims data and geographic information systems: a neighborhood correlation study from LIFE Study.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2026Article
- Assessing physical-exercise suitability in an urban canal corridor: evidence from the Cangzhou reach of China's Grand Canal.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Contributions of park-based activities to overall physical activity among adults living near recently renovated parks in low-income New York City neighborhoods: variations by race/ethnicity and sex.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Article
- Do Playgrounds Help Develop Children's Fundamental Movement Skills? Using Direct Video Observations to Investigate.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Examining park features that encourage physical activity and social interaction among adults.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- Use of Accelerometry and Global Positioning System (GPS) to Describe Children's Park-Based Physical Activity Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Youth.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2025Article
- Impact of Park Redesign and Renovation on Children's Health-Related Quality of Life.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2025Article
- A more detailed park prescription: How does landscape support human health behavior?Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Evaluating actual use of outdoor exercise equipment in a community park in Southern California through video-captured behavioral assessment.Discover public health · 2025Article
- Promoting physical activity among community-dwelling seniors living in a Francophone rural area in New Brunswick: a pre-implementation qualitative study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Risk aversion or adaptation? Public choices in sports participation under climate risks.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Association of Park Renovation With Park Use in New York City.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Unearthing Inequities in the Relationship between Multiple Sociodemographic Factors and Diverse Elements of Park Availability and Quality in a Major Southern Metropolitan Region.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Everyday discrimination and satisfaction with nature experiences.Frontiers in epidemiology · 2024Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) can obtain information on park users and their physical activity using momentary time sampling. We conducted a literature review of studies using the SOPARC tool to describe the observational methods of each study, and to extract public park use overall and by demographics and physical activity levels. We searched PubMed, Embase, and SPORTDiscus for full-length observational studies published in English in peer-reviewed journals through 2014. Twenty-four studies from 34 articles were included. The number of parks observed per study ranged from 3 to 50. Most studies observed parks during one season. The number of days parks were observed ranged from 1 to 16, with 16 studies observing 5 or more days. All studies included at least one weekday and all but two included at least one weekend day. Parks were observed from 1 to 14times/day, with most studies observing at least 4 times/day. All studies included both morning and afternoon observations, with one exception. There was a wide range of park users (mean 1.0 to 152.6 people/park/observation period), with typically more males than females visiting parks and older adults less than other age groups. Park user physical activity levels varied greatly across studies, with youths generally more active than adults and younger children more active than adolescents. SOPARC was adapted to numerous settings and these review results can be used to improve future studies using the tool, demonstrate ways to compare park data, and inform park promotions and programming.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.