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The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun

This paper investigates the motives for first participating in parkrun and its impact for those who volunteered compared to those who did not volunteer. A cross-sectional survey was emailed to parkrun registrants, resulting in 60,680 survey returns from parkrun participants who self-identified as vo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Haake, Steve, Quirk, Helen, Bullas, Alice
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962286
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000138
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author Haake, Steve
Quirk, Helen
Bullas, Alice
author_facet Haake, Steve
Quirk, Helen
Bullas, Alice
author_sort Haake, Steve
collection PubMed
description This paper investigates the motives for first participating in parkrun and its impact for those who volunteered compared to those who did not volunteer. A cross-sectional survey was emailed to parkrun registrants, resulting in 60,680 survey returns from parkrun participants who self-identified as volunteers only (n = 681), runners/walkers who volunteered (n = 21,928) or runners/walkers who did not volunteer (38,071). Two survey questions were analysed in this paper: (1) their motives for first participating in parkrun as a volunteer or runner/walker; and (2) the perceived impact on their health and wellbeing. More than half of respondents were female and were predominantly from a white ethnic background. Compared to runners/walkers who volunteered, those who volunteered exclusively were older, more likely to be retired and more likely to be inactive at registration. Exclusive volunteers were motivated by wanting to give something back to the community (45.8%), to feel part of a community (26.1%), to help people (24.5%) or because they were unable to run (21.1%). Runners/walkers who volunteered were more likely to volunteer because they felt obliged to (49.3%). A large proportion of exclusive volunteers reported improvements to connections with others such as feeling part of a community (83.5%), the number of new people met (85.2%) and time spent with friends (45.2%). While mental and physical health were ranked low by volunteers as a motive (4.7% and 2.7% respectively), improvements were reported by 54.5 and 29.3% respectively. The data shows that volunteering at parkrun without participating as a runner or walker can deliver some of the components of the Five Ways to Wellbeing advocated by the NHS. The characteristics of parkrun (free, regular, local, accessible and optional) make it a viable social prescribing offer that can be used as a model for other community events seeking to attract volunteers.
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spelling pubmed-100216152023-03-17 The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun Haake, Steve Quirk, Helen Bullas, Alice PLOS Glob Public Health Research Article This paper investigates the motives for first participating in parkrun and its impact for those who volunteered compared to those who did not volunteer. A cross-sectional survey was emailed to parkrun registrants, resulting in 60,680 survey returns from parkrun participants who self-identified as volunteers only (n = 681), runners/walkers who volunteered (n = 21,928) or runners/walkers who did not volunteer (38,071). Two survey questions were analysed in this paper: (1) their motives for first participating in parkrun as a volunteer or runner/walker; and (2) the perceived impact on their health and wellbeing. More than half of respondents were female and were predominantly from a white ethnic background. Compared to runners/walkers who volunteered, those who volunteered exclusively were older, more likely to be retired and more likely to be inactive at registration. Exclusive volunteers were motivated by wanting to give something back to the community (45.8%), to feel part of a community (26.1%), to help people (24.5%) or because they were unable to run (21.1%). Runners/walkers who volunteered were more likely to volunteer because they felt obliged to (49.3%). A large proportion of exclusive volunteers reported improvements to connections with others such as feeling part of a community (83.5%), the number of new people met (85.2%) and time spent with friends (45.2%). While mental and physical health were ranked low by volunteers as a motive (4.7% and 2.7% respectively), improvements were reported by 54.5 and 29.3% respectively. The data shows that volunteering at parkrun without participating as a runner or walker can deliver some of the components of the Five Ways to Wellbeing advocated by the NHS. The characteristics of parkrun (free, regular, local, accessible and optional) make it a viable social prescribing offer that can be used as a model for other community events seeking to attract volunteers. Public Library of Science 2022-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC10021615/ /pubmed/36962286 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000138 Text en © 2022 Haake et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Haake, Steve
Quirk, Helen
Bullas, Alice
The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title_full The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title_fullStr The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title_full_unstemmed The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title_short The health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the UK: A cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
title_sort health benefits of volunteering at a free, weekly, 5 km event in the uk: a cross-sectional study of volunteers at parkrun
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962286
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000138
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