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Thursday, July 1, 2010

K-STATE EXPERT CREATING A TOOL TO MEASURE HOW PARKS PROMOTE PHYSICAL 1xbet best casino website

MANHATTAN -- Having a community park nearby can have an impact on whether neighborhood residents are physically active, according to Andrew 1xbet best casino website , an assistant professor of kinesiology at Kansas State University. But 1xbet best casino website says which park characteristics encourage the most activity is not as clear.

This summer 1xbet best casino website is working with Sonja Wilhelm Stanis, a researcher at the University of Missouri, and Gina Besenyi, a K-State master's student in public health, Holton, to develop a tool to evaluate the potential of neighborhood parks to promote physical 1xbet best casino website .

&1xbet best casino website ;My interest is in how we can better design neighborhoods and communities to allow people the opportunity to be more active,&1xbet best casino website ; Kaczynski said. &1xbet best casino website ;Parks are an important environmental resource for physical activity for both adults and youth.&1xbet best casino website ;

The idea to create a user-friendly park audit tool grew out of a pilot research project last summer where 1xbet best casino website and Wilhelm Stanis began looking at park features and the behaviors of users in four Kansas City, Mo., area 1xbet best casino website .

For the study they surveyed patrons and used systematic observation protocols to record the level of park 1xbet best casino website . They found that trails were among the most used features and that more formal and often expensive recreational facilities – like ball diamonds or soccer fields – were used less by the average park-goer, perhaps because they didn't encourage spontaneous 1xbet best casino website .

The researchers also found that about half of park patrons were active, while half were sedentary.

&1xbet best casino website ;That showed us that there is definite potential for parks to be better designed to encourage more physical activity,&1xbet best casino website ; Kaczynski said. &1xbet best casino website ;Building more effective parks would go a long way toward promoting public health in general.&1xbet best casino website ;

The new tool will help both community members and park officials measure which features are more likely to encourage activity in parks. 1xbet best casino website said elements like cleanliness, size, safety and accessibility also are being examined.

The project will bring together around 30 participants from the Kansas City community, including representatives from public health, 1xbet best casino website and recreation, urban planning, private and nonprofit organizations, and adult and youth park users. The stakeholders will participate in three workshops to develop the tool and will test its feasibility in 55 Kansas City 1xbet best casino website near the end of this summer.

&1xbet best casino website ;We want to get a wide range of people thinking about how community features influence their activity so they begin considering ways to improve their neighborhoods,&1xbet best casino website ; Kaczynski said. &1xbet best casino website ;The tool also will provide more hard evidence people can use to advocate for park improvements. Data can lend a lot of credibility to community requests.&1xbet best casino website ;

1xbet best casino website said he hopes creating a way to measure park quality will directly result in health benefits for the public.

&1xbet best casino website ;Physical activity obviously has many benefits, from lower rates of obesity to reducing the risk for many types of cancer and diabetes,&1xbet best casino website ; he said. &1xbet best casino website ;While physical activity is an individual choice for people, there also are a lot of times where the contexts in which people live influence whether they have a choice to be active and how attractive a choice that is.&1xbet best casino website ;

The project, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research program in San Diego, Calif., should be complete early in 2011.

After the tool is developed, researchers plan to disseminate it widely by presenting it to community groups and at professional conferences.