The Use of Community Based Participatory Research to Promote Activity-Friendly Neighborhoods The influence that the built environment may impose on the opportunity and the decision to be physically active has recently received increased attention. Creating activity-friendly environments is very important to public health. Therefore, collaborations among public health professionals, transportation engineers, and government officials have been called for and established in order to more fully understand relationships between the built environment and participation in physical activity, and to offer guidelines and recommendations for policy changes which will lead to the development of activity-friendly environments. If, in fact, land can be developed in such a way that it will ultimately coalesce to create an environment conducive to physical activity, implementation of optimal designs will be dependent, not only upon policy changes, but more importantly upon primary stakeholders'(land developers, homebuilders, and homeowners/occupants) acceptance and promotion of design regulations and conditions. To date, no studies have utilized a participatory based research approach engaging all key stakeholders and gatekeepers to identify the determinants and barriers to building an activity-friendly environment, or to foster the development of an interdisciplinary action-agenda which all stakeholders will embrace. Therefore, the specific aims of this project are (1) To create a working partnership among interdisciplinary stakeholders (land developers, home builders, realtors, home buyers, policy makers, and public health professionals) aimed at deepening current understandings of environmental structures and land development practices as potential determinants or barriers to participation in physical activity;(2)To conduct an exploratory, qualitative assessment of local stakeholder groups using a }town hall meeting} model to identify variables that mediate progress toward activity-friendly building and land development and to define local priorities and perspectives in an action agenda focused on the creation of an activity-friendly environment;and (3) To conduct a consortium where interdisciplinary task forces will commit to work toward the realization of prioritized action-agenda items. Engaging all key stakeholders (pubic and private) in this qualitative study will generate critically important data which will deepen current understandings regarding the motivators and barriers to activity-friendly design and will result in an action agenda developed from the `community', by the `community', and for the `community'. This project will document challenges, barriers, and successes in order to inform other pubic health researchers, professionals and community leaders in efforts to build community capacity toward the creation of activity-friendly neighborhoods and healthy communities.
This project will document challenges, barriers, and successes in order to inform other pubic health researchers, professionals and community leaders in efforts to build community capacity toward the creation of activity-friendly neighborhoods and healthy communities.
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