Parks play an important role in helping individuals and communities reach public health recommendations for physical activity (PA).¹ Few studies have examined the impact of park and recreation facility improvements (e.g., skate park renovations, installation of fitness zones), with varying levels of success at increasing facility use.^{2, 3} Less is known about the effectiveness of informational outreach activities on park and recreation facility use.⁴ Residents are often unaware of parks in their community, and lack of awareness is often cited as a reason why people do not use them.⁴ Informational outreach activities may be important for increasing park awareness and maximizing park use.

Rural populations have poorer health and engage in less PA than their urban and suburban counterparts.⁵ Parks have been identified as a potentially important setting for PA in rural communities.⁶ However, few studies have examined rural park use. The omission of rural settings from the park research literature is a concern as differences have been observed in park visitation and park-based PA between urban and rural parks.⁷ Research is needed to determine if park promotion strategies are effective in these settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a park awareness campaign on park use in six parks serving rural populations. We hypothesized that park use would increase from baseline to post campaign.

There was 100% agreement between raters on whether users were present during TA observations, and near perfect agreement on number of users (ICC=.99). Table 1 presents park event attendance and park use. Combining parks, park use was significantly greater at baseline than post campaign (χ²=4.69, P=.03). Stratified analyses showed no significant difference in park use between baseline and post campaign at Park A (χ²=2.48, P=.12), Park C (χ²=2.29, P=.13), Park E (χ²=2.88, P=.09), and Park F (χ²=3.52, P=.06). The likelihood of observing park use was not significantly different between baseline and post campaign at Park B (OR=3.19; P=.49), but the likelihood of observing park use was significantly lower at baseline than post campaign at Park D (OR=.04; P=.04), indicating an increase in park use from baseline to post campaign. There were no significant differences between baseline and post campaign for number of park users engaged in sedentary (χ²=2.45, P=.12), walking (χ²=.29, P=.59), and vigorous (χ²=.20, P=.65) activities.

The strategies used to promote the campaign park events were reasonably effective in reaching residents; however, park use decreased by 13% from baseline to post campaign. Park use data show the results were driven by community events observed at baseline but not at post campaign. Eigthy-seven percent of people observed at Parks A and F at baseline were observed during a community church event (one observation period) and from a church after-school program (two observation periods). These three observation periods (3% of total observations) accounted for 62% of total park use at baseline. If these observation periods were excluded, park use would more than double from baseline to post campaign, leading to very different conclusions about the effectiveness of the awareness campaign. As these events were not regular park programming, their exclusion may result in more representative park use data. The results may also be reflective of a secular trend in park use in the county. Walking track use was observed at a well-known park centrally located in this county using the same observation protocols described in this study (this park was not included in the awareness campaign). The results show walking track use decreased by 23% from baseline to post campaign at this facility.

This study has limitations that should be considered. Other than providing a map of county walking tracks/trails, no efforts were made to promote regular park use at the campaign park events. Further, a campaign consisting of single events may not be sufficient to alter residents’ park use behavior, and a series of events may be needed. A lack of control parks is an additional limitation. However, there were notable strengths in this study, including informational outreach activities being a largely untested approach for increasing park awareness and use, and the use of a longitudinal design and objective measures of park use. This study was also conducted in rural communities with a high representation of racial/ethnic minorities, for which little information on park promotion efforts is known.

Parks may be an important setting for PA in rural communities.^{1, 6} However, a lack of awareness is often cited as a reason why people do not use parks.⁴ The park event promotion efforts used in this study have the potential to reach a large number of residents. Although 97 and 84 people were observed across all parks at baseline and post campaign, respectively, a total of 629 people were observed during six separate 1.5-hour campaign park events. This suggests there is strong public enthusiasm for parks in these communities. Important questions remain about how to deliver effective park awareness campaigns and how to harness interest in park events for the purpose of contributing to future community-wide PA promotion efforts.