Background: Soil structure is mainly composed of sand, silt, clay, and organic materials. Organisms can live in the soil. The large number of stray cats in the cities of Iran is a major environmental and health problem. Toxoplasma oocysts are shed with the feces of cats, so soil is known as a potential source of transmission of toxoplasmosis. The aim of this study was to determine the soil cont...

BACKGROUND As a first step to determining the public availability of drinking water, self-reported access to water fountains in parks and playgrounds was examined. METHODS A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on a convenience sample of 4163 US adults (aged ≥ 18 years) using the 2009 HealthStyles Survey. The outcome measure was reported access to water fountains in parks/playgrounds. Among...

BACKGROUND Differences in availability of recreational resources may contribute to racial and socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in physical activity. Variations in the location and density of recreational resources were examined by SES and racial composition of neighborhoods. METHODS Densities of resources available in recreational facilities and parks were estimated for census tracts be...

OBJECTIVE To examine disparities in park availability, features, and characteristics by income and the percentage of foreign-born population within a predominately-Hispanic border community. METHODS This study occurred in 2010-2011 in El Paso, Texas. All census tracts (n=112) were categorized as low, medium, or high income and percent foreign-born. The number of parks intersecting each tract ...

This study explores the importance of different motivations to visit three types of recreational settings--farms, private forests, and state or national parks. Data were collected via a mail-back questionnaire administered to a stratified random sample of households in Missouri (USA). Descriptive and inferential statistics reveal both similarities and discontinuities in motivations for visiting...

After 50 years of steady increase, per capita visits to U.S. National Parks have declined since 1987. To evaluate whether we are seeing a fundamental shift away from people's interest in nature, we tested for similar longitudinal declines in 16 time series representing four classes of nature participation variables: (i) visitation to various types of public lands in the U.S. and National Parks ...

Interactions between polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and humans in 6 national parks in the Canadian Arctic from 1986 to 2000 were examined (n = 53). No human fatalities and only 1 injury occurred. Bears were killed in only 4% of interactions, a much lower rate than in other studies, possibly because of the availability of deterrents. Interactions occurred mainly in summer in parks where bears are...

Urban parks have been shown to form park cool islands (PCIs), which can effectively alleviate the negative influences of urban heat islands (UHI). However, few studies have examined the detailed characteristics of PCIs, the effect of urban park features on their individual temperatures, and monthly variation in PCIs. Land surface temperature (LST) retrieved from Landsat 8 TIR images between May...

INTRODUCTION Community parks provide places for people to be physically active. Our objective was to determine how access to, barriers to use of, and use of community parks differ by race/ethnicity. METHODS Analyses are based on a cross-sectional national sample of adults (N = 5,157) participating in the 2006 HealthStyles mail survey. Community parks were defined as outdoor public areas withi...