ArticleJournal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine2012
The effectiveness of a community playground intervention.
Article in Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Associations between parental perceptions of neighbourhood environment and physical activity in children and adolescents: a systematic review including 149 studies.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of structural-level environmental interventions on physical activity: a systematic review.International archives of occupational and environmental health · 2023Pooled it
- Infrastructure, policy and regulatory interventions to increase physical activity to prevent cardiovascular diseases and diabetes: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- Do Natural Experiments of Changes in Neighborhood Built Environment Impact Physical Activity and Diet? A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Pooled it
- Systematic literature review of built environment effects on physical activity and active transport - an update and new findings on health equity.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2017Pooled it
- Healthy urban environments for children and young people: A systematic review of intervention studies.Health & place · 2015Pooled it
- Impact of policy and built environment changes on obesity-related outcomes: a systematic review of naturally occurring experiments.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2015Pooled it
- Using participatory methods to develop context-specific local government actions to create healthy food and physical activity environments for school-aged children: a case study in Flanders.Health research policy and systems · 2026Article
- Review
- Inclusive community playgrounds benefit typically developing children: An objective analysis of physical activity.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Living liveable? RESIDE's evaluation of the "Liveable Neighborhoods" planning policy on the health supportive behaviors and wellbeing of residents in Perth, Western Australia.SSM - population health · 2020Article
- A scoping review of simulation modeling in built environment and physical activity research: Current status, gaps, and future directions for improving translation.Health & place · 2019Article
- Playground usage and physical activity levels of children based on playground spatial features.Zeitschrift fur Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health · 2017Article
- Does playground improvement increase physical activity among children? A quasi-experimental study of a natural experiment.Journal of environmental and public health · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This study assessed whether an upgrade of playgrounds in a community was associated with changes in the physical activity of local children. The study used a natural experiment design with a local authority project to upgrade two community playgrounds as the intervention and a matched control community. Children's physical activity was measured by an Actigraph GT1M accelerometer worn for 8 days, enabling up to 6 days of data to be analyzed. A self-administered parent/guardian questionnaire was used to collect additional data, including perceptions of the neighborhood, school-travel modes, days involved in extracurricular activities, ethnicity, caregiver age, caregiver sex, household vehicle access, and household income. At baseline, 184 children (5-10 years old) participated. Of these, 156 completed the 1-year follow-up assessment (20% lost to follow-up). There was statistically significant evidence that change in mean total daily physical activity was associated with on an interaction between participant's body mass index (BMI) z-score and her or his community of residence (p = 0.006), with the intervention being associated with higher levels of activity for children with lower BMIs but lower levels for children with higher BMIs. Physical activity is not the only focus of local authority playground provision as playgrounds also have benefits for social development and fundamental movement skills. However, making sure that physical activity is always included in the design rationale and that playgrounds are designed to encourage and sustain physical activity could be a useful population health intervention. The effects of such interventions on different subgroups are of importance, especially if the effects differ over levels of BMI.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.