Access to Places for Physical Activity

This strategy creates or enhances access to places for physical activity and provides information to encourage their use. Places can include public parks and trails, fitness and recreational facilities, schools and universities, malls, senior centers, and worksites. Information may involve training, incentives, and teaching about healthy behaviors. Worksites, school districts, early childhood and education (ECE) facilities, organizations, and community coalitions can improve access to safe places to be physically active for young people and adults. Consider the following approaches:

Parks and recreation centers.

Community organizations and locations can provide access to safe places to be physically active—such as walking trails, indoor facilities, parks, and playgrounds—away from busy streets. Health and fitness facilities provide indoor opportunities to be physically active. These locations and facilities can also provide options to make physical activity safer and more comfortable for people with mobility limitations or chronic health conditions.

Shared-use agreements.

Shared-use agreements allow public access to existing facilities by defining terms and conditions for sharing the costs and risks associated with expanding a property’s use. For example, school districts may create shared-use agreements to allow after-hours access to school facilities for community members to use.

Workplace facilities and policies.

Workplace facilities and polices that are designed to improve health behaviors can help employees to be more active. Worksites can encourage physical activity through a variety of approaches to include management support, physical access to facilities, policies, and social support programs.

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What Others Are Doing

Bike Share Program Offers State Employees Another Way to Be Active in California.
Creating a Wellness Culture in Worksites in Louisiana.
Workplace Wellness Program Gets Employees Moving at Work in South Dakota.
Current Practices in Worksite Wellness Initiatives.
This document highlights efforts by six state health departments to create healthier community environments through worksite wellness.

Resources

Creating or Improving Places for Physical Activity

Park, Trail, and Greenway Infrastructure Interventions when Combined with Additional Interventions

Community Engagement Resource Guide*
This guide provides park and recreation professionals with a roadmap to implement equitable and inclusive community engagement strategies. It focuses on the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and activation of park projects and park plans. It includes an internal assessment, community engagement strategies, and an evaluation framework.

Complete Parks Playbook [PDF-2.4MB]
This playbook is for anyone interested in using parks to promote health and can be used as a comprehensive guide to assess a community’s parks system. The playbook briefly explains the elements of a complete parks system, gives additional resources to implement each element, and highlights community examples.

Creating Equity-Based System Master Plans*
This website helps park and recreation professionals, planners, and others to create a systemwide park master plan that is grounded in equity. It can help users focus on multiple benefits while gaining support from partners and stakeholders across different sectors.

Creating Parks and Public Spaces for People of All Ages: A Step-by-Step Guide* [PDF-5.0MB]
This guide is for local leaders, policy makers, community advocates, and neighborhood residents. It can help them collect data, evaluate opportunities, and generate ideas about how to increase the quality and quantity of parks and outdoor spaces nationwide.

Parks for Inclusion Guide*
This set of resources is designed to guide local park and recreation agencies to create formal inclusion policies that emphasize reaching historically marginalized groups. Such policies help ensure that spaces are open, welcoming, and engaging to community members from racial and ethnic minority groups, people with physical and cognitive disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and new Americans.

The Toolkit for Health, Arts, Parks and Equity (HAP-E)*
This toolkit helps local health advocates use place-based arts and culture approaches to promote health equity. Included are case studies, principles, and guidelines on using arts and culture, parks, and public space to celebrate communities and facilitate challenging discussions that can help build a more just world.

Joint Use and Equity* [PDF-1.4MB]
This section of a longer Health Equity Guide helps community leaders and practitioners to consider health equity when designing, implementing, and evaluating joint use agreements. It includes factors related to barriers, potential partners, and opportunities to maximize health impact, along with community examples.

Shared Use Playbook
This playbook is for public health advocates, community leaders, and local government officials who want to learn more about implementing shared use agreements. It compiles many of the tools and resources for formalizing shared use agreements into one guide and discusses the benefits of shared use for a community’s health. It also compares different types of policies and agreements and highlights real-world examples.

Shared Use and Tribal Nations* [PDF-749KB]
This fact sheet introduces practitioners to legal concepts that are unique to Indian Country; the concepts may be relevant in a shared use agreement with a Tribal Nation. A glossary and community highlights are included.

CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard Manual [PDF-4.7MB]
This manual helps employers use the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard to assess their health promotion programs, identify gaps, and prioritize high-impact strategies to promote employee health and well-being.

Inclusive Worksite Wellness Toolkit*
This guide offers tips, strategies and resources to ensure that worksite wellness programs are inclusive of people with disabilities. It can be used to build an inclusive worksite wellness program from the ground up or to ensure that employees with disabilities are reached by an existing wellness program.

Total Worker Health [PDF-2.1MB]
This is a starting point for employers, workers, labor representatives, and other professionals interested in the Total Worker Health (TWH) approach. The workbook can help with implementing workplace safety and health programs. Issues covered include work-life supports, built environment, and community supports for physical activity. This workbook can help employers develop new initiatives to increase physical activity or better align existing workplace interventions with TWH.

Walk This Way: A Resource on State and Local Policies That Support Physical Activity and Wellness in and Around the Workplace
Decision makers, employers, and other professionals can use this resource to understand state and local policies that support physical activity and workplace wellness. This toolkit addresses policies for wellness councils, government wellness programs, paid leave for physical activity, and tax credits for small businesses with workplace wellness programs. It also includes local policies that affect employee health such as land use planning, Complete Streets, and Transportation Demand Management programs.

*Can be used to help address equitable and inclusive access to physical activity

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