Kevin A. Roberts
Forest Park is home to more than 1,300 acres of leafy trees and beautiful natural spaces. It’s also the home to some of the region’s most important cultural institutions.
But how do visitors actually use the spaces and attractions found within the park’s borders? That’s a question researchers from the Brown School at Washington University have been trying to tackle since the Park Activity Research and Community Study began on June 1, 2019.
Deborah Salvo, PARCS project leader and former assistant professor at the Brown School, says Forest Park Forever, which is funding the study, not only wants to know how the park is being used, but how the park can become even more accessible and better represent the diversity of the region.
Soon, the team of researchers will have its answers.
The project ends on Dec. 31, so there aren’t any takeaways the group has been able to pull from the study just yet. Data analysis is ongoing. However Áine O’Connor, the study’s manager and a research project coordinator for the Prevention Research Center, says the work has already produced some interesting findings about the role public spaces, including Forest Park, played during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Less than a year after the study began, the pandemic briefly forced its suspension in March 2020. Although that time presented new challenges for researchers, it also allowed them to uncover new uses for the park and see its value in a new light.
“I’m not trying to say that it was great that it happened,” Salvo says, “but in terms of how public spaces are used and really quantifying their value to society, we rarely have opportunities like what COVID provided.”
The team learned that approximately 60 percent of people reported that they either increased or maintained their use of the park during the pandemic. O’Connor says people also liked some of the parks pandemic-related changes, including road closures that made it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to get around safely.
“Forest Park is the place for community events and big events, and during the pandemic, … many of them were canceled, so the number of people who reported using the park for event attendance was severely decreased,” O’Connor says. “We found that more people were reporting that they were using the park for exercise or leisure walking, or enjoying nature on their own as a place to get away.”
While the team continues to examine data over the coming weeks, Salvo says the study has already provided plenty of information—and satisfaction.
“For me, it has been like a hub for building capacity or training people around the importance of community assets like parks as part of what public health means,” Salvo adds. “It has been really nice to get a new generation of people seeing the importance of this and getting the right tools and training to assess these things as they impact our health and well-being.”
