Veitch Jenny, Salmon Jo, Carver Alison, Timperio Anna, Crawford David, Fletcher Elly, Giles-Corti Billie
Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia.
BMC Public Health. 2014 Jun 13;14:600. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-600.
Modifying the built environment by improving parks is potentially a sustainable way to increase population level physical activity. Despite considerable investment in parks and park renovations, few natural experiments on the impact of improving amenities on park use and park-based physical activity have been conducted. REVAMP is a natural experiment that aims to examine whether park improvement increases overall park usage, park-based physical activity and active travel to and from the park in the intervention compared with the control park over a two-year period; and to identify which specific aspects of the park refurbishment attracts park visitors and encourages park users to be more active. This paper describes the methods of the REVAMP study.
The intervention park is a large regional park (329 hectares) located in a low socio-economic status (SES) area in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The control park is a regional park (120 hectares) located in a high SES area in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Multiple methodologies to evaluate the impact of the park renovation are being employed including: cross-sectional surveys of local residents living near the two parks, direct observations of park users, intercept surveys with park users, and electronic monitoring of path usage and car traffic within the parks. Baseline measures were conducted in April-May 2013 (T1), and an innovative play space suitable for children of all ages and abilities was installed at the intervention park between September 2013 and February 2014. Follow-up measures will be repeated in April-May 2014 (T2) and April-May 2015 (T3). All methodologies will be completed at both the intervention and control parks at all three time-points, with the exception of the cross-sectional survey of local residents which will only be conducted at T1 and T3.
This research will inform future park developments, and will contribute to creating an evidence base of the impact of park refurbishment, and the development of natural experiment methodology.
Current controlled trial ISRCTN50745547, registration date 11.1.2014.
通过改善公园来改变建成环境可能是一种增加人群身体活动水平的可持续方式。尽管在公园及公园翻新方面投入了大量资金，但针对改善设施对公园使用及基于公园的身体活动的影响所开展的自然实验却很少。“改造公园”（REVAMP）是一项自然实验，旨在研究与对照公园相比，在两年时间内，干预公园的改善措施是否会增加公园的总体使用率、基于公园的身体活动以及往返公园的主动出行；并确定公园翻新的哪些具体方面吸引了公园游客并促使公园使用者更加活跃。本文描述了“改造公园”研究的方法。
干预公园是位于澳大利亚墨尔本东北部郊区一个社会经济地位较低（SES）地区的大型区域公园（329公顷）。对照公园是位于墨尔本东郊一个高SES地区的区域公园（120公顷）。正在采用多种方法来评估公园翻新的影响，包括：对两个公园附近当地居民的横断面调查、对公园使用者的直接观察、对公园使用者的拦截式调查以及对公园内路径使用和汽车交通的电子监测。基线测量于2013年4月至5月进行（T1），2013年9月至2014年2月期间在干预公园安装了一个适合各年龄和能力儿童的创新游乐空间。后续测量将在2014年4月至5月（T2）和2015年4月至5月（T3）重复进行。除了仅在T1和T3进行的当地居民横断面调查外，所有方法将在三个时间点的干预公园和对照公园都完成。
本研究将为未来的公园发展提供信息，并将有助于建立公园翻新影响的证据基础以及自然实验方法的发展。
当前对照试验ISRCTN50745547，注册日期2014年1月11日。
