Use of SOPARC to assess physical activity in parks: do race/ethnicity, contextual conditions, and settings of the target area, affect reliability?

Oriol Marquet,Claudia Alberico,J Aaron Hipp,Gina S Lovasi,Elizabeth Mazak,Jing-Huei Huang,Myron F Floyd,Dustin Fry

doi:10.1186/s12889-019-8107-0

Abstract

BackgroundSince its introduction in 2006, SOPARC (Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities) has become a fundamental tool to quantify park visitor behaviors and characteristics. We tested SOPARC reliability when assessing race/ethnicity, physical activity, contextual conditions at the time of observation, and settings of target areas to understand its utility when trying to account for individual characteristics of users.MethodsWe used 4725 SOPARC observations completed simultaneously by two independent observers to evaluate intraclass correlation and agreement rate between the two observers when trying to assess sex, age group, race/ethnicity, and level of physical activity of urban park users in different park settings. Observations were in 20 New York City parks during Spring and Summer 2017 within the PARC3 project.ResultsObservers counted 25,765 park users with high interobserver reliability (ICC = .94; %Agreement.75). Reliability scores were negatively affected by the population being observed, the intensity of physical activity, and the contextual conditions and settings of the target area at the time of observation. Specific challenges emerged when assessing the combination of physical activity and race/ethnicity.ConclusionsSOPARC training should aim to improve reliability when assessing concurrent measures such as physical activity, race/ethnicity, age, and sex. Similarly, observing crowded park areas with many active users areas may require more observation practice hours.

Highlights

Since its introduction in 2006, SOPARC (Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities) has become a fundamental tool to quantify park visitor behaviors and characteristics
We present the estimated marginal effects calculated at the sample means, representing the chance of the two observers being in agreement on the exact number of people (+ − 10%) of a specific race/ethnicity present in the target area
A total of 25,765 park users observed during the PARC3 study formed the basis for this analysis

Summary

Introduction

Since its introduction in 2006, SOPARC (Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities) has become a fundamental tool to quantify park visitor behaviors and characteristics. We tested SOPARC reliability when assessing race/ethnicity, physical activity, contextual conditions at the time of observation, and settings of target areas to understand its utility when trying to account for individual characteristics of users. Systematic observation studies in spaces such as parks and playgrounds, can be challenging because of the lack of objective measures to quantify visitor characteristics and behavior. Since its introduction in 2006, Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) [3] has provided an answer to those challenges. The development of SOPARC and its rapid adoption by researchers allowed a better understanding of the context in which physical activity occurs while being able to measure the behavior of large groups of people. Its development has allowed evaluation to move beyond individual measurements and self-reported physical activity

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