Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Associations Between Community Built Environments With Early Care And Education Classroom Physical Activity Practices And Barriers, Bethany D. Williams, Susan B. Sisson, Dipti Dev, Bryce Lowery, Diane Horm, Janis Campbell, Denise Finneran, Jennifer Graef-Downard, Linda Whaley

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The influence of community-built environments on physical activity (PA) support in Early Childhood Education settings (ECEs) is unknown. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine associations between community PA environments and ECE classroom PA practices. We included licensed Oklahoma ECE directors serving 3-to-5-year-old children. Parks and playground locations were exported from Google Earth. NationalWalkability Index was derived from 2010 US Census data. ArcMap 10.6 was used to geocode ECE locations, which were within an Activity Desert if no parks/playgrounds were located within a 1-mile radius or if Walkability Index was 10.5 or below. Classroom PA practices were determined …

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …