Cargando…
Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States
Protected areas including national/state parks and recreational waters are excellent natural resources that promote physical activity and interaction with Nature, which can relieve stress and reduce disease risk. Despite their importance, however, their contribution to human health has not been prop...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2016
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997516/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27548195 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13080830 |
_version_ | 1782449793424949248 |
---|---|
author | Jiang, Yan Yuan, Yongping Neale, Anne Jackson, Laura Mehaffey, Megan |
author_facet | Jiang, Yan Yuan, Yongping Neale, Anne Jackson, Laura Mehaffey, Megan |
author_sort | Jiang, Yan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Protected areas including national/state parks and recreational waters are excellent natural resources that promote physical activity and interaction with Nature, which can relieve stress and reduce disease risk. Despite their importance, however, their contribution to human health has not been properly quantified. This paper seeks to evaluate quantitatively how national/state parks and recreational waters are associated with human health and well-being, taking into account of the spatial dependence of environmental variables for the contiguous U.S., at the county level. First, we describe available natural resources for outdoor activities (ANROA), using national databases that include features from the Protected Areas Database, NAVSTREETS, and ATTAINSGEO 305(b) Waters. We then use spatial regression techniques to explore the association of ANROA and socioeconomic status factors on physical inactivity rates. Finally, we use variance analysis to analyze ANROA’s influence on income-related health inequality. We found a significantly negative association between ANROA and the rate of physical inactivity: ANROA and the spatial effect explained 69%, nationwide, of the variation in physical inactivity. Physical inactivity rate showed a strong spatial dependence—influenced not only by its own in-county ANROA, but also by that of its neighbors ANROA. Furthermore, community groups at the same income level and with the highest ANROA, always had the lowest physical inactivity rate. This finding may help to guide future land use planning and community development that will benefit human health and well-being. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4997516 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49975162016-08-26 Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States Jiang, Yan Yuan, Yongping Neale, Anne Jackson, Laura Mehaffey, Megan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Protected areas including national/state parks and recreational waters are excellent natural resources that promote physical activity and interaction with Nature, which can relieve stress and reduce disease risk. Despite their importance, however, their contribution to human health has not been properly quantified. This paper seeks to evaluate quantitatively how national/state parks and recreational waters are associated with human health and well-being, taking into account of the spatial dependence of environmental variables for the contiguous U.S., at the county level. First, we describe available natural resources for outdoor activities (ANROA), using national databases that include features from the Protected Areas Database, NAVSTREETS, and ATTAINSGEO 305(b) Waters. We then use spatial regression techniques to explore the association of ANROA and socioeconomic status factors on physical inactivity rates. Finally, we use variance analysis to analyze ANROA’s influence on income-related health inequality. We found a significantly negative association between ANROA and the rate of physical inactivity: ANROA and the spatial effect explained 69%, nationwide, of the variation in physical inactivity. Physical inactivity rate showed a strong spatial dependence—influenced not only by its own in-county ANROA, but also by that of its neighbors ANROA. Furthermore, community groups at the same income level and with the highest ANROA, always had the lowest physical inactivity rate. This finding may help to guide future land use planning and community development that will benefit human health and well-being. MDPI 2016-08-17 2016-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4997516/ /pubmed/27548195 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13080830 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Jiang, Yan Yuan, Yongping Neale, Anne Jackson, Laura Mehaffey, Megan Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title | Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title_full | Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title_fullStr | Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title_full_unstemmed | Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title_short | Association between Natural Resources for Outdoor Activities and Physical Inactivity: Results from the Contiguous United States |
title_sort | association between natural resources for outdoor activities and physical inactivity: results from the contiguous united states |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997516/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27548195 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13080830 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT jiangyan associationbetweennaturalresourcesforoutdooractivitiesandphysicalinactivityresultsfromthecontiguousunitedstates AT yuanyongping associationbetweennaturalresourcesforoutdooractivitiesandphysicalinactivityresultsfromthecontiguousunitedstates AT nealeanne associationbetweennaturalresourcesforoutdooractivitiesandphysicalinactivityresultsfromthecontiguousunitedstates AT jacksonlaura associationbetweennaturalresourcesforoutdooractivitiesandphysicalinactivityresultsfromthecontiguousunitedstates AT mehaffeymegan associationbetweennaturalresourcesforoutdooractivitiesandphysicalinactivityresultsfromthecontiguousunitedstates |