What neighborhoods can kids and their parents benefit from being in? Hunter and colleagues set out to answer this question. Their goal was “To identify features parents perceived as being relevant for their child’s active play, their own active recreation, and their coactivity. Parents . . . with preschoolers . . . living in Edmonton, Canada were recruited. . . . Parents reported demographic information and the importance of several neighborhood features (destinations, design, social, safety, esthetics) for their child’s active play, their own active recreation, and their coactivity via six-item Likert scales. . . . The majority of parents reported that 23 of the 32 neighborhood features were perceived as being relevant for all activity domains. These included destinations (parks, playgrounds, arenas, schools, sport fields, arenas/ice rinks, river valley/ravine), design features (quiet streets, trails, sidewalks), social features (friends/family, child’s friends, other children playing outside, knowing neighbors, trusting neighbors), safety features (street lighting, crime, traffic, daylight, sidewalk maintenance, crosswalks), and esthetic features (cleanliness, natural features).”
Stephen Hunter, Scott Leatherdale, John Spence, and Valerie Carson. 2022. “Perceived Relevance of Neighborhood Features for Encouraging Preschoolers’ Active Play, Parents’ Active Recreation, and Parent-Child Coactivity.” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 249-255, https://doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000304