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...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Jiang, Yan, Yuan, Yongping, Neale, Anne, Jackson, Laura, Mehaffey, Megan
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