Public Perceptions of Local Parks and Recreation as an Essential Community Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Local residents are the primary stakeholder for municipal parks and recreation who have the potential to influence funding and policy through their participation, voting, and advocacy. Research has suggested that individuals are more likely to support parks and recreation and view them as essential when they perceive they provide benefits that address their own as well as broader community needs. This panel study investigated Pennsylvania residents and the extent they considered parks and recreation an essential community service during the COVID-19 pandemic. It further assessed the rationale for why parks and recreation were considered either essential or non-essential during this time period. A majority of respondents (54%) felt local parks and recreation were an essential service in their community during the pandemic based primarily on their perceived contributions to physical health, mental health and wellbeing, and the safe provision of recreation opportunities. Conversely, parks and recreation were considered non-essential when they had been closed, when individuals were unsure of what services were actually provided during the pandemic, or they were perceived as unsafe or unsanitary given the presence of COVID-19. Findings provide evidence of the contributions provided by local parks and recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest influenceable factors associated with perceptions of whether parks and recreation are an essential community service.

Job Satisfaction and Alcohol Consumption: Empirical Evidence from China

Despite growing attention to job satisfaction as a social determinant of alcohol-related behaviors, few studies focus on its diverse impacts on alcohol consumption. Using data from the China Family Panel Study in 2018, this study uses logistic regression analysis to examine how job satisfaction affects alcohol consumption in China, finding that people who were satisfied with their jobs were more likely to be regularly drinking. Employed people who were satisfied with their working environment and working hours were more likely to regularly drink, but those who were satisfied with their wages and working security were less likely to be regularly drinking. Findings suggest that the link between job satisfaction and alcohol consumption is dynamic. Employment policies, working wellbeing improvement programs, and alcohol policy improvement should, therefore, be designed on the basis of a comprehensive account of entire job-related attitudes.

Applying Systems Thinking Approaches to Address Preventive Health Factors through Public Parks and Recreation Agencies

Within the United States parks and recreation agencies (P&R) manage public facilities, spaces, lands, and recreation programs. Public health (PH) evidence has increasingly pointed to local public P&R agencies as critical for promoting preventive health. Programs and strategies are available, but most P&R agencies have limited resources and lack local knowledge on which to base actions. However, the research base is growing. The global research question has shifted from asking IF P&R agencies can positively affect PH factors, to HOW they can best do so with limited resources.This research adapted a systems theory approach to how local public P&R agencies are addressing health factors. Methods included a literature review along with iterative exploration through a three-stage Delphi panel study with 17 P&R agency Expert Panelists in the U.S and Canada. Panelists were identified through a waterfall selection process. Each had at least three years of senior administration experience with interest in addressing PH factors.The study explored which preventive factors appear to be most modifiable by P&R. Results indicated increased physical activity, improved nutrition, enhanced safety or perception of safety, increased social and parental engagement, improved transportation and access to locations (especially nature), and cessation or reduced overconsumption of tobacco and alcohol. However, the priority of factors varies by community, and the continuing challenge is determining the priority of the factors for agencies and their partners to address. Community-specific data are not typically readily available to P&R agencies. Programs, strategies, internal methods, policies, and documents utilized by agencies were collected. Thirty-one related national initiatives (programs) were identified and ranked by the panelists.Key common strategies for P&R were identified. Results indicated a need to focus strategies on leadership and adequate funding to create a strong organizational culture of systematic assessment for addressing PH through allocation of P&R staff and financial resources. Systems thinking analysis and strategies can improve outcomes for cultural ethics of inclusion and equity, equitable access to assets and programs, collaboration with other partners, utilization of crime prevention and environmental design strategies, increased health promotions and education, and centralized tracking and evaluation of feasible measures.Implications for research include needs for additional validation and dissemination of research, evidence-based tools, and proven methods. There continues to be a strong need to help address gaps in knowledge transfer between research and practice realms. Management implications suggest methods for practice to enhance systems-thinking approaches for better preventive health outcomes through P&R in communities.

Carrying the Burden Into the Pandemic – Effects of Social Disparities on Elementary Students’ Parents’ Perception of Supporting Abilities and Emotional Stress During the COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges, especially for families. Both the public and the scientific community are currently discussing the extent to which school closings have worsened existing social differences, especially with regard to children’s academic and socio-emotional development. At the same time, parents have had to manage childcare and home schooling alongside their jobs and personal burdens posed by the pandemic. Parents’ possibilities for meeting these cognitive and emotional challenges might also depend on the different conditions in families. For this reason, the present paper investigates the structural and process characteristics of the family as well as children’s and parents’ psychological characteristics that predict how parents assess their ability to support their child’s learning during homeschooling as well as parents’ perceived emotional stress caused by school closure. The study analyses data of the Newborn Cohort Study of the German National Educational Panel Study. The two dependent variables (self-assessment of abilities, perceived stress) were measured during the COVID-19 pandemic after the first school closure in Germany, at a time when the children of this cohort were attending second grade. Besides a number of control variables (including the child’s struggle with home schooling), families’ structural characteristics [socioeconomic status (SES), education], process characteristics (home learning environment, HLE), parents’ psychological characteristics (preceding psychological stress), and the child’s psychological characteristics (self-regulation, school-related independence) from earlier waves were included as predictors. The results of structural equation models show that perceived stress was associated with structural factors and the preceding psychological stress of parents. Parents with higher preceding stress reported higher perceived stress. Interestingly, higher-educated parents also reported more stress than lower educated parents during the pandemic. The effect was the other way around for SES – parents with lower SES reported more stress than parents with higher SES. The self-reported abilities to support the learning of the child seemed to be mainly predicted by the parent’s education as well as preceding psychological stress. To sum up, the results identify important aspects that determine how parents handle the challenges of the school closures. Especially, socially disadvantaged families carry their burden into the pandemic.

Childcare, work or worries? What explains the decline in parents' well-being at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany?

Objective: We examine how care arrangements, general and altered working conditions, and worries influenced subjective well-being at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for working parents in Germany. Background: Prior research suggests several reasons for declines in subjective well-being, particularly for working mothers. We employ Pearlin's (1989) stress process model to explore the role of parental childcare, altered working conditions and amplified worries of working parents in terms of increased stressors and modified resources to cope with the extraordinary situation. Method: We use data from two starting cohorts from the National Educational Panel Study and its supplementary COVID-19 web survey from spring 2020 to examine possible heterogeneities in contextual factors for individual-level changes in the well-being of working mothers and fathers. Results: We confirm a more pronounced decline in well-being for working mothers than fathers. Part-time work and access to emergency care reduce the gender gap in decreased well-being. Conversely, young children in the household and personal worries are associated with lower well-being for both parents. However, we cannot explain the more significant decrease in mothers’ well-being by increased childcare responsibilities or altered working conditions. Conclusion: A greater decline in well-being indicates a particular burden among working mothers. However, it cannot be linked solely to gendered inequalities in the changes of paid and unpaid work during the first months of the pandemic.

Changes in Household Size and Depression: A Temporal Analysis

This study examines the relationship between changes in household size and depression through a temporal analysis using the Korean Welfare Panel Study. The number of household members at both t-1 and t year was measured and a generalized estimating equation was used. Households that increased in size after a year showed a lower prevalence of depression than the corresponding reference groups. On the contrary, when individuals from multi-person households inhabited single-person households after a year, their probability of experiencing depression increased by more than 70% in comparison to those who remained in single-person households throughout.

Trajectories of subject-interests development and influence factors in higher education

It is a well-studied phenomenon, that throughout the course of studying at university, the motivation for the study program decreases. Correlation between motivation and learners’ behaviour, for example the learning process, achievement or, in the worst case, dropout exist. So there is a need for understanding the development of motivation in detail, like that of subject-interests, and for identifying influence factors, especially for higher education. This panel study examined the development of 4,345 students in higher education. Growth mixture models for subject-interests identify two classes of trajectories: “descending interest” and “continuously high interest”. In a next step, the analysis shows that gender, university entrance score, academic field and occupational aspiration influence membership of the classes. The results are discussed with respect to their consequences for education programs, but also with respect to possible new research questions.