Description: This indicator provides information about publicly available recreational space per capita (acres per 1,000 population).Publicly available recreational spaces play an important role in communities, often conferring myriad health benefits. Access to places for physical activity, such as parks, trails, playgrounds, and community centers with recreational facilities, has been shown to prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, and many types of cancer.Community recreational spaces also provide opportunities for park-related interventions that may reduce violent crime; serve as locations for outreach to increase access to and enrollment in health and social services; and provide space for community gardens and farmers’ markets, thereby increasing community access to fresh produce. Moreover, parks and other green spaces have environmental benefits that can protect community health through improved air quality and reduced impacts from the urban heat island effect .For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.
Copyright Text: Indicator generated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Data for calculating this indicator came from the following sources: Recreational spaces were compiled from the [1] California Protected Areas Database (CPAD: https://www.calands.org/cpad/), filtering at the holdings (parcel) level on access type (Access is not "No Public Access"). The CPAD data's access type was validated using [2] LA County's "Countywide Parks and Open Space" dataset (https://egis-lacounty.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/lacounty::countywide-parks-and-open-space-public-hosted/about) and the [3] Trust for Public Land's ParkServe dataset. The Countywide Parks and Open Space dataset was also used to supplement CPAD data with recreational spaces that are not typically considered conservation lands, such as community centers with basketball courts, playgrounds, pools, or other publicly accessible recreational facilities. These facilities were included if they are open to the public for free or at a low cost (<$10).