Environmental Assessment Of Public Recreation Spaces Of Public Parks In The City Of Knoxville, TN

Public parks provide places and amenities encouraging people to be physically active (PA). The City of Knoxville, TN, a mid-sized city in the Appalachian region, maintains 94 public parks, ranging from pocket parks to larger community parks, in which people can be active. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to profile the physical environmental attributes of this park system relative to infrastructure, aesthetics, and amenities. METHODS: An abbreviated version of the Environmental Assessment of Public Recreation Spaces (EAPRS) tool was used to measure three elements of each park (N = 94). An overall ParkScore (PS), with a possible total of 65 points, was composed of ‘Physical Activity Infrastructure’ in the park across 7 categories: trails, open spaces, pools, beaches, sidewalks, playsets, and athletic fields/courts; ‘Amenities’ captured data on quality items related to seating, restrooms, eating/drinking facilities, bike racks, parking, and signage, etc.; and ‘Aesthetics’ based on items such as the presence of meadows, streams, landscaping. EAPRS scores were compared across the types of parks and access (e.g. greenway links, WalkScore) using SAS 9.4. RESULTS: The overall PS was 15.4 (SD = 7.0). The PA infrastructure score was 5.2 (2.7), aesthetics was 2.9 (1.9), and amenities was 7.3 (3.7). Larger community parks, compared to all other parks, scored significantly higher across all EAPRS elements (p < .0001), but had the lowest access by walking or via public transportation. Natural park areas had significantly fewer elements of PA infrastructure. Amenity scores were significantly higher for community and special use parks. 25.8% of the parks were connected to greenways. These greenway-linked parks had significantly higher PS (20.9 vs. 13.4; p < .0001), PA infrastructure (6.6 vs. 4.7; p < .0039), aesthetics (4.5 vs. 2.3; p < .0001), and amenity (9.9 vs. 6.3; p < .0001) scores. CONCLUSIONS: The attributes of larger community parks are much more likely to attract people for active visits. However, as parks increase in size, fewer people may be able to access them through active transport or public transportation. Smaller neighborhood parks, which are more accessible through active transportation, could be excellent targets for park enhancement, including increases in the physical activity infrastructure.