Journal article
Use of SOPARC to assess physical activity in parks: do race/ethnicity, contextual conditions, and settings of the target area, affect reliability?
BMC Public Health, v 19(1), 1730
03 Jan 2020
PMID: 31870351
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Background
Since its introduction in 2006, SOPARC (Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities) has become a fundamental tool to quantify park visitor behaviors and characteristics. We tested SOPARC reliability when assessing race/ethnicity, physical activity, contextual conditions at the time of observation, and settings of target areas to understand its utility when trying to account for individual characteristics of users.
Methods
We used 4,725 SOPARC observations completed simultaneously by two independent observers to evaluate intraclass correlation and agreement rate between the two observers when trying to assess sex, age group, race/ethnicity, and level of physical activity of urban park users in different park settings. Observations were in 20 New York City parks during Spring and Summer 2017 within the PARC 3 project.
Results
Observers counted 25,765 park users with high interobserver reliability (ICC=.94; %Agreement.75). Reliability scores were negatively affected by the population being observed, the intensity of physical activity, and the contextual conditions and settings of the target area at the time of observation. Specific challenges emerged when assessing the combination of physical activity and race/ethnicity.
Conclusions
SOPARC training should aim to improve reliability when assessing concurrent measures such as physical activity, race/ethnicity, age, and sex. Similarly, observing crowded park areas with many active users areas may require more observation practice hours.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Use of SOPARC to assess physical activity in parks: do race/ethnicity, contextual conditions, and settings of the target area, affect reliability?
- Creators
- Oriol Marquet - Barcelona Institute for Global HealthJ Hipp - North Carolina State UniversityClaudia Alberico - North Carolina State UniversityJing-Huei Huang - North Carolina State UniversityDustin Fry - Drexel UniversityElizabeth Mazak - North Carolina State UniversityGina Lovasi - Drexel UniversityMyron Floyd - North Carolina State University
- Publication Details
- BMC Public Health, v 19(1), 1730
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 11
- Grant note
- 9376 / Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Physical Activity Research Center FJCI 2016-28975 / Spanish Ministry of Economy Industry and Competitiveness; Spanish Government
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative; Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health; Epidemiology and Biostatistics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000511647000011
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85077054262
- Other Identifier
- 991020099213204721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: SDGs in the Output
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health