Title: Fitness in the Park: Community Awareness

Type of Project: Awareness Project Discipline: Medical Primary Presenter: Julia Kirsten Students Involved in Project to Date: Julia Kirsten, Lindsay Euers Mentor: Amanda Merck, MPH Location: San Antonio, Texas Project Description:

Background: Fitness in the Park is a San Antonio program that offers free exercise classes in city parks and community centers year-round. Many people who would benefit the most from these classes (i.e. people who can’t afford a gym) don’t seem to be utilizing this program as much as others.

Objectives: We sought to conduct surveys across San Antonio to better determine awareness and use of these exercise classes. We hoped this data would assist the Fitness in the Park Program manager and the Mayor’s Fitness Council to more directly target certain areas under utilizing the program.

Methods: We surveyed San Antonio residents aged 18 years and older at four locations across the city. We asked the following questions: (1) Have you heard about Fitness in the Park? (2) If you have, have you attended a class? (3) Do you currently exercise at least 30 minutes a day? (4) If you don’t, what’s the biggest barrier preventing you from doing so? (5) How could a health care provider help you to exercise more? Districts in which each person resided were collected and represented in graph form.

Results: Out of 120 respondents surveyed, 32 (27%) had heard of the Fitness in the Park program while 88 (73%) had not heard of the program. Out of the 32 respondents that were familiar with the program, only three (9%) had attended a class in the past month. The biggest barriers to fitness in the population sampled was time (n=36) and issues regarding childcare/caring for family members (n=21).

Conclusion: Many San Antonio residents are unaware of Fitness in the Park’s free fitness classes. Health professionals should familiarize themselves with Fitness in the Park and other free community services that could greatly benefit the health of San Antonians.

Figures:

PHP

BUM

TPM

PP

Figure 1. City of San Antonio Council Districts. Locations where surveys were collected are labeled as follows: Pearsall Park (PP), Phil Hardberger Park (PHP), Bethany United Methodist Church (BUM), and Travis Park Methodist Church (TPM).

References:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes- statistics-report.pdf

Texas Department of State Health Services. (2017). Diabetes Data: Surveillance and Evaluation. Retrieved from https://www.dshs.texas.gov/diabetes/tdcdata.shtm