Strategies and inequities in balancing recreation and COVID exposure when visiting green spaces

Abstract

Green spaces are beneficial for physical and mental health, especially during and after disasters. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, created a trade-off: parks could be therapeutic but also could expose people to infection. This paradox posed inequities as marginalized populations often have less access to parks and were hit harder by the pandemic. We combined cellphone-generated mobility data with demographic indicators, a neighborhood survey, and local infection rates to examine how residents of Boston, MA, navigated this trade-off in April–August 2020. We hypothesized that they adopted strategies for mitigating infection exposure—including fewer park visits and prioritizing parks that might have lower infection risk, including larger parks with more opportunity for social distancing and parks near home with fewer unfamiliar faces—but that marginalized populations would have less opportunity to do so. We also introduce a novel measure of exposure per visit based on the volume of other visitors, infection rates, and park size. Bostonians made fewer park visits relative to 2019 and prioritized larger parks and parks closer to home. These strategies varied by community. Experiences of the pandemic were influential, as communities that perceived greater risk or had more infections made more park visits, likely because they were a relatively safe activity. Communities with more infections tended to avoid nearby parks. Inequities were also apparent. Communities with more Black residents and infections had greater infection exposure per visit even when controlling for the types of parks visited, highlighting difficulties in escaping the challenges of the pandemic.

Exposure to infection when accessing groceries reveals racial and socioeconomic inequities in navigating the pandemic

“…In sum, we see evidence for an additional mechanism contributing to racial and socioeconomic inequities during the pandemic: the role of wealth, strategy, and segregation in determining the ability to mitigate exposure to infection risk when accessing essential amenities. The illustration here was with grocery stores, but it might feasibly be extended to other needs and institutions, including schools, parks 50 , and healthcare. This dynamic also adds to existing theory on EJ and disasters, which has focused on factors influencing pre-disaster positioning and post-disaster resources, by demonstrating the inequitable dynamics of navigating threats during an ongoing, protracted disaster (Supplementary file 1 ).…”

“…We compare grocery store visits in April 2020 to February 2020 as the most recent pre-pandemic period. The analytic approach was modeled on that of a related study by the authors on parks and exposure 50 .…”

“…Through this arrangement we had access to the Social Distancing metrics, Place Patterns, and POI data. Our process for working with these data was modeled on that reported in previous related studies on parks and exposure 50 .…”

“…The survey consisted of items measuring respondents’ experiences during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, including their ability and tendency to follow social distancing recommendations; attitudes towards regulations; and the economic and personal impacts of the pandemic. This survey was also utilized in similar ways in a previous study by the authors on parks and exposure 50 The survey utilized a stratified random sample design that divided the city of Boston into 25 distinct neighborhoods based on social, demographic, and historical salience. Four neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Black or Latinx populations were oversampled (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Lower Roxbury, and East Boston-Eagle Hill).…”

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Supply and Demand in Urban Parks along “Luck Greenway” in Fuzhou

“…It activates a new methodology to assess the distribution of behaviors and preferences for park experiences and health-oriented visits [36][37][38]. It can also enable the spatial assessment of the diurnal distribution of park visitors and help to identify the frequency of visits in neighboring GSs based on cellphone records [39,40]. Compared to conventional field investigation, it is easier to refine data and analyze their meaning [41].…”