Study: Access to parks linked with greater physical activity for some, but not all, residents | College of Applied Health Scienc

Study: Access to parks linked with greater physical activity for some, but not all, residents | College of Applied Health Sciences | Illinois
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Jan. 15, 2026 | Tia King
Parks’ proximity has a small positive effect on residents’ physical activity levels, and the effect is greater in counties with higher household incomes and larger populations of white, non-Hispanic residents, according to a study led by recreation, sport and tourism professors Mikihiro Sato and Toni Liechty.
Photos by L.Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new two-year study found that U.S. residents who lived near parks and recreational facilities had small increases in their leisure-time physical activities, but the relationship was stronger in more affluent counties with largely white, non-Hispanic populations.
Mikihiro Sato
, a professor of
recreation, sport and tourism
at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, used data from the University of Wisconsin County Health Rankings database for 2019 and 2020 to look at the percentages of counties’ populations that had adequate access to parks and recreational facilities. The study defined adequate access as living in a census tract that was within a half mile of a park or one square mile of recreational facilities in urban areas or within three miles of them in rural areas.
According to the study, published in the journal Leisure Sciences, more than 55% of each county’s population had such access. The final datasets represented more than 96% of U.S. counties, the team said.
“We found that the association between the prevalence of leisure-time physical activity and access to parks and recreational facilities was stronger in counties that had greater proportions of non-Hispanic white residents,” Sato said. “The relationship strengthened further as median household income increased, which suggests that residents of higher-income counties may be more likely to visit parks and facilities to engage in leisure-time physical activity.”
The co-authors of the paper were
Toni Liechty
, a professor in the department at Illinois;
Lance Warwick
, a sport management professor at Ithaca College and current doctoral candidate at Illinois; and
Nicholas Pitas
, a professor of public health and health education at the State University of New York at Brockport.
While the role of parks and recreation facilities in providing greater opportunities for engagement in physical activity has been highlighted in some recent public policies, the research findings have been mixed, the team wrote.
In a 2019
study
published in the Journal of Leisure Research, Sato and his co-authors reported that counties with greater access to parks and recreational facilities had lower health care costs among older adults, most likely because living near these amenities encouraged residents to engage in physical activity. That paper was co-written with
Yuhei Inoue
, a current sport management professor at Illinois then at the University of Minnesota;
James Du
, a professor of sport management at Florida State University; and
Daniel C. Funk
, a professor and the Ed Rosen Senior Research Fellow at Temple University.
In addition to exploring the relationship between facility availability and adults’ physical activity levels in the current study, the team investigated whether it
changed depending on county demographics such as income and racial composition. Sato said they used county-level data because most local parks and recreation agencies operate within a county-based structure. However, the team’s methodology also accounted for state-level policy differences that might affect residents’ physical activity, he said.
About 75% of each county’s population was non-Hispanic white. The median household income levels were $57,500 in the 2019 dataset and $55,700 the following year.
The study included adults age 20 or older. About 69% of those in the 2019 dataset said they exercised or engaged in some form of recreational physical activity during the prior 30 days, and that proportion increased to more than 74% the following year, the researchers found.
While some public health initiatives have highlighted the role of parks and recreation facilities in boosting communitywide physical activity levels and mitigating health care costs, the research findings have been inconsistent, suggesting that the impact is not universal and that there may be differing factors at play that affect community members’ abilities and willingness to use these amenities, the team wrote.
While providing adequate access is important, “Making facilities more welcoming and accessible is also essential,” Liechty said. “We recommend community-centered approaches and partnerships with local organizations to co-design programs that are inclusive and reflect local needs and cultural contexts. These initiatives could include providing family-oriented activities, creating subsidized fee structures that make programs more affordable for low-income residents, and improving the walkability of neighborhood parks.”
The work was funded by the Campus Research Board at the U. of I.
Editor’s note:
To reach Mikihiro Sato, email
mikisato@illinois.edu
To reach Toni Liechty, email
tliechty@illinois.edu
The paper “Park and recreational facility availability, leisure-time physical activity, socioeconomic status and race” is available
online
or from the
News Bureau
DOI:10.1080/01490400.2025.2566939
The paper “Access to parks and recreational facilities, physical activity and health care costs for older adults: Evidence from U.S. counties” is available
online
or from the
News Bureau
DOI: 10.1080/00222216.2019.1583048
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