Purpose
Parks have been shown to contribute significantly to community health, including health-related quality of life, mental health, social cohesion, and collective efficacy. However, the impact of parks depends not only on their physical features but also on their social dimensions, such as the perceived safety and availability of community programs. To maximize the benefits of parks on community health and well-being, it is important to complement physical improvements with community-level social interventions.
Funded through the NIH R01 grant, CUNY has partnered with 3×3 to develop a study that builds off the equity-based Community Parks Initiative (CPI) to work with neighborhood and city partners in a community-engaged, community-level intervention to enhance the social dimension of these new parks to improve community-level health outcomes. Our research team is conducting a type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation randomized stepped wedge trial in 8 low-income neighborhoods in NYC (including parks in the Lower East Side/Chinatown area, Harlem, Brownsville, and South Bronx) to determine the impact on community-level HR-QoL and mental health of a community-engaged intervention that empowers and capacitates local stakeholders to design and implement programmatic strategies in newly renovated parks that will enhance the neighborhood social environment.
Community-centered approach
As the implementation partner, 3×3 is employing a community-centered approach to collaborate with local partners to design one primarily physical activity strategy that promotes inclusive participation and one primarily social strategy that enhances social interaction and relationships. 3×3 will provide each community with a block grant and core services related to formative research, design, rapid prototyping, testing, and deployment. 3×3 will also design evaluation methods for data capture that are integrated into the design, engagement, and activation process.
Outcomes
- Study outcomes, including HR-QoL, depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness, at the community level via random, representative samples of adult residents in participating communities at intervention baseline and months 24 and 48 post-baseline
- Examine whether the intervention effects might be mediated through social cohesion, neighborhood ties, a sense of community, park use, and perception and/or health behaviors such as physical activity and sleep.
- Conduct qualitative research to examine the implementation of the community-level intervention.
