ArticleHealth promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice2026
The impact of revitalized urban and rural recreation infrastructure on usage levels: evidence from a longitudinal quasi-experimental study in Alberta, Canada.
Article in Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Natural experiments in the built environment: evaluating impacts on health.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2026Article
- Natural experiments for healthier communities: evidence to drive Canadian policy and practice.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionFew studies have analyzed the impact of public investments in indoor and outdoor recreational spaces, and even fewer have assessed this impact longitudinally. This hinders informed decision-making about returns on investments made with limited public budgets. We assessed the impact of a 2008 municipal plan to revitalize existing urban and rural public indoor facilities and outdoor spaces by evaluating changes in usage levels before and after implementation of Phase 1 (2009-2013) of the revitalization plan.
methodsA quasi-experimental study involving a telephone survey of 750 participants was conducted before and after Phase 1. A region with similar demographics and public recreational indoor and outdoor infrastructure was used for comparison.
resultsOur analysis found no changes in usage of recreational venues over time whether indoor (e.g. multipurpose recreational facilities, community halls) or outdoor (e.g. golf courses, off-leash dog parks, multiuse trails), in either the intervention or comparison region. Only one rural multipurpose indoor recreational facility showed a statistically significant increase in usage during Phase 1.
conclusionStrategies targeting only physical infrastructure may not result in increased usage across a municipal population. To address existing inequities in access to publicly funded community resources that support health, both the built and social environments must be considered.
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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.