New research finds an independent association between parents' rating of the safety of their neighborhood and the risk of overweight children at the age of seven years [Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med -- Abstract: Neighborhood Safety and Overweight Status in Children, January 2006, Lumeng et al. 160 (1): 25]. This work, though cross-sectional in nature, lends additional support to the idea that social marketing programs aimed at increasing physical activity among youth should assess, and address if necessary, the potential barriers raised by actual or perceived unsafe neighborhoods.
These data dovetail with two other recent reports from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The first study found that adults in California walk an average of less than one hour per week and one in four do not walk at all during a typical week for transportation or leisure purposes. Researchers found that younger or lower-income adults spend more time walking for transportation while older or more affluent adults spend more time walking for leisure. The amount of walking differed by race and ethnicity, with Latinos walking the most for transportation (72 min/wk) and American Indians/Alaska Natives walking the most for leisure (95 min/wk). Adults in socially cohesive (think ‘social capital’), safe neighborhoods with access to parks walk more for leisure than their counterparts. The implications for social marketing interventions aimed at increasing walking, as expressed by the authors were ... communities that establish safe parks, develop neighborhood crime prevention programs and build social cohesion could increase average leisure walking time by approximately 19 minutes.
So we can add strategies that increase opportunities to walk (place) and address two specific price variables – social benefits/supports (capital?) and perceived risks of threat/harm – to a comprehensive social marketing program to increase physical activity that only indirectly, yet apparently effectively, may influence the “target” behavior. Who would have thought about neightborhood crime watch programs as an intervention to increase physical activity? And wouldn't you suspect that the presence of such programs is probably influenced by the level of neighborhood cohesion or social capital? Social marketing to enhance social capital - a place that needs a lot more exploration!
Technorati Tags: Physical Activity, Safe Neighborhoods, Social Capital, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
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