Green spaces are beneficial for physical and mental health, especially during and after disasters. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, created a trade-off: parks could be therapeutic but also could expose people to infection. This paradox posed inequities as marginalized populations often have less access to parks and were hit harder by the pandemic. We combined cellphone-generated mobility data with demographic indicators, a neighborhood survey, and local infection rates to examine how residents of Boston, MA, navigated this trade-off in April–August 2020. We hypothesized that they adopted strategies for mitigating infection exposure—including fewer park visits and prioritizing parks that might have lower infection risk, including larger parks with more opportunity for social distancing and parks near home with fewer unfamiliar faces—but that marginalized populations would have less opportunity to do so. We also introduce a novel measure of exposure per visit based on the volume of other visitors, infection rates, and park size. Bostonians made fewer park visits relative to 2019 and prioritized larger parks and parks closer to home. These strategies varied by community. Experiences of the pandemic were influential, as communities that perceived greater risk or had more infections made more park visits, likely because they were a relatively safemore »
This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2023
Integrating tick density and park visitor behaviors to assess the risk of tick exposure in urban parks on Staten Island, New York
Abstract Background Public green spaces are important for human health, but they may expose visitors to ticks and tick-borne pathogens. We sought to understand, for the first time, visitors’ exposure risk and drivers of tick-preventative behavior in three popular parks on Staten Island, New York City, NY, USA, by integrating tick hazard and park visitors’ behaviors, risk perceptions and knowledge. Methods We conducted tick sampling in three parks, across three site types (open spaces, the edge of open spaces, and trails) and three within-park habitats (maintained grass, unmaintained herbaceous, and leaf litter) to estimate tick density during May-August 2019. Human behavior was assessed by observations of time spent and activity type in each site. We integrated the time spent in each location by park visitors and the tick density to estimate the probability of human-tick encounter. To assess visitors’ tick prevention behaviors, a knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) survey was administered. Results Three tick species ( Ixodes scapularis , Amblyomma americanum and Haemaphysalis longicornis) were collected. For all species, the density of nymphs was greatest in unmaintained herbaceous habitats and trails, however, the fewest people entered these hazardous locations. The KAP survey revealed that most respondents ( N = 190) identified more »
- Award ID(s):
- 1924061
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10352085
- Journal Name:
- BMC Public Health
- Volume:
- 22
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1471-2458
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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