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Background Leisure time physical activity (LTPA) provides both health benefits and risks, particularly during a pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, significant increases in close-to-home LTPA raised concerns for public health and land managers alike. This project illustrates a novel, integrated monitoring approach to estimating COVID-19 risk exposure during trail-related LTPA, with implications for other public spaces. Methods COVID-19 risk exposure was conservatively calculated from the integration of in-person observations of LTPA trail groups and automated monitoring of trail traffic volumes in spring 2020. Trained observers tracked 1,477 groups. Traffic volume estimates and observed distance data were integrated, considering occlusion and total trail traffic volume. Results 70% of groups had one or more encounters. Among individual users, 38.5% were 100% compliant across all events observed but 32.7% were not compliant. Considering trail traffic volumes and annual daily traffic volume, exposure to risk of COVID-19 was conservatively estimated at 61.5% among individual trail users. Conclusions Monitoring opportunities and challenges of health risk exposure exist. Adjusted exposure measures based on volume counts can approximate numbers of unique individuals exposed, inform management actions, efficacy and policy decisions.

Theoretical arguments that leisure is the basis of any culture are available. Yet, scarcity in the literature of serious consideration of leisure in non-Western societies demonstrates that the topic has been neglected. One possible explanation for the failure to achieve progress in cultural comparisons of leisure is the lack of data. At least three approaches permit this type of comparison. This paper focuses on a literary approach by investigating how East Africa's most prominent creative writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, treats leisure in his most important English language novels. This analysis centers on two of his novels, A Grain of Wheat and Petals of Blood. The two novels are complex, intricate stories drawing heavily on Western philosophy and literature as well as African folklore. Although Ngugi suggests that leisure is the foundation of civilization, the fibre that makes the cloth of society, he portrays leisure distinctively in social terms likely to surprise those familiar with Western traditions of leisure.

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