Purpose This study aimed to demonstrate how ParkIndex values can be used to examine issues related to composite park access, and to investigate whether ParkIndex scores for block groups were significantly different by income, race/ethnicity, and population density. Design Cross-sectional, environmental justice analysis of spatial disparities. Setting Greenville County, South Carolina, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Subjects Park access and quality data were collected for a total of 507 block groups across the study setting. Measures For all study block groups, we empirically derived a multi-dimensional park access metric called ParkIndex representing the probability of park use based on three park availability and quality indicators. Block group median household income, race/ethnicity, and population density were obtained from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Analysis Choropleth maps were used to juxtapose ParkIndex values and neighborhood sociodemographic attributes. Analysis of variance was conducted to examine differences in ParkIndex values by multiple sociodemographic variables. Results No significant differences in ParkIndex values were found by median household income (F = 0.15, P = .86), percent non-Hispanic White race/ethnicity (F = 0.22, P = .80), or population density (F = 0.70, P = .50). Conclusion The current study contributes to the fast-growing body of literature examining whether access to quality parks is equitably distributed in diverse locations. Future research can investigate the utility and generalizability of this composite metric to identify and mitigate potential environmental injustices and health disparities.
Kaczynski et al. (Thu,) studied this question.