English (UK) Your search returned 166 results
How do we create more child-friendly neighborhoods?
How do we create more child-friendly neighborhoods?
A child-friendly neighborhood supports the fundamental needs of children’s daily lives and promotes their physical, emotional, and social development.
However, parents’ perception of a neighborhood as child-friendly can influence where they choose to live and how comfortable they feel letting their children play outside or move around on their own. These choices affect children’s physical activity, which directly impacts their health and well-being.
To understand these choices, researcher Xiaoli Gong set out in her PhD project to develop a new instrument that measures how parents in the Netherlands perceive a neighborhood’s child-friendliness.
She also explored how these perceptions influence parents’ housing choices and children’s physical activity.
This brief summarizes key findings from Gong’s publications from 2024 and 2025, offering valuable insights for urban planners, designers, researchers, and professionals focused on child-friendly environments.
The findings can inform the planning of interventions to create more child-friendly neighborhoods that promote children’s physical activity and health.
Coping with Standards: Integrating Art and Safety into the Design of a Creative Playground
Playing it safe: The relationship between parent attitudes to risk and injury, and children’s adventurous play and physical activity
Children’s experiences of playground characteristics that contribute to play value and inclusion: Insights from a meta-ethnography
Parental Preference for Park Attributes Related to Children’s Use of Parks in Low-Income, Racial/Ethnic Diverse Neighborhoods
Environmental Qualities That Enhance Outdoor Play in Community Playgrounds from the Perspective of Children with and without Disabilities: A Scoping Review
Children’s play and physical activity levels in a natural playground: an observational case study from the Netherlands
Playground Location and Patterns of Use
Playground Design and Physical Activity
Strategies for inclusive playgrounds: a case study from Japan
To Play or Not to Play: Mapping Unequal Provision of Children’s Playgrounds
Planning for Risky Play: From Child-Safe Playgrounds Towards Adventurous Urban Areas
Children’s Perspectives of Neighbourhood Spaces: Gender-Based Insights From Participatory Mapping and GIS Analysis
Beyond green: Unveiling the impact of urban park quality and greenery on children’s physical activity
EXPLORING THE NEXUS: DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS OF URBAN LOCAL PUBLIC SPACES AND CHILDREN’S PLAY BEHAVIOR IN BANGALORE, INDIA
SOOPEN: design and assessment of a tailored systematic observation tool to evaluate outdoor play behavior among schoolchildren groups
Parental perspectives on barriers and facilitators of early adolescent outdoor play: A qualitative study
Why we need playgrounds closer to home
Why we need playgrounds closer to home
Playgrounds offer numerous health benefits, serving as spaces for physical activity, social interaction, stress relief, and motor skill development. However, not all communities have equal access, and distance from home can significantly impact how often families visit and use them.
To explore this, Young and colleagues (2023) surveyed 1350 adults at 60 public playgrounds across 10 U.S. cities during the summer of 2021. Their study examined whether distance to the playground from their home was associated with visit frequency, length of stay, and mode of transportation.
By understanding these patterns, city planners and public health officials can design more accessible and better-connected public play spaces to encourage outdoor physical activity and improve community well-being.
