Open public spaces and physical activity facilities : study of systematic observation of the environment Espaços públicos de lazer e estruturas para atividade física : estudo de observação sistemática do ambiente

The aim of this study was to investigate the quantity and quality of open public spaces (OPS) and physical activity (PA) facilities in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina. A descriptive survey was carried out in 2015 on the quantity, type and quality of OPS and PA facilities. The quality of OPS and PA facilities were assessed by systematic observation. A quality index of OPS (score -3 to 6 points) was divided into three categories, poor (category ≤0), average (0.1 to 2.9) and good quality (category ≥3). For analysis, descriptive statistics were used. Of the 214 OPS, the highest proportion was squares/gardens (n = 128, 59.8%). Of the 214 OPS, 59.8% were squares/gardens. About 51.9% (n = 111) of OPS had good quality. A higher proportion of comfort items obtained good quality, such as lighting (54.7%), trash cans (45.8%) and garden benches (55.1%). In more than 60.0% of OPS, there were no incivilities. Of the 377 PA facilities identified, 53.6% presented good quality and 13.8% poor quality. Playgrounds (29.4%), outdoor gyms (15.9%) and soccer fields/courts (14.9%) were more frequent, only the latter less than half had good quality (28,6%). There were no PA facilities in 29.0% of OPS. A higher proportion of OPSs have good quality, but less than half require improvement, comfort, less incivility and greater diversity of PA facilities. This may promote greater visits to OPS and leisure opportunities, including the practice of PA.


INTRODUCTION
Open public spaces (OPS) are important attributes of the urban environment that favor health promotion 1,2 .These spaces favor free access and promote benefits for mental health, environmental and economic sustainability 3 .Studies in high-income countries demonstrate that the presence and quality of OPS 1,4 and structures for activities in these spaces can promote higher level of physical activity in different population groups 5 .
Thus, public policies could stimulate the adaptations of urban centers to stimulate the installation of environmental attributes, such as OPSs in order to contribute to the sustainable development of cities 2 .This is necessary since, in low-and middle-income countries, public health expenditures are high due to physical inactivity, representing approximately US$ 42.5 million in per year 6 .Analyzing the urban context of a city in its distribution of public goods and services intended for health promotion, such as parks, squares, allows us understanding how much a city is friendly to the population 4,7 .In the context of Brazil, this analysis may favor more vulnerable groups, such as those with low income and lower levels of education, to enjoy leisure options in an active and safe way 8,9 .
The city of Florianopolis is among the capitals of Brazil with the highest prevalence of people active in leisure time (43.9%),compared to São Paulo, with the lowest prevalence (30.4%) 10 .The quantity and quality of OPS, as well as the presence of physical activity facilities in spaces can have an important impact on the health of the population, such as adherence, maintenance and motivation to healthy life choices 11 .Therefore, investigating the characteristics of these spaces may support municipal and national public policies for the planning of health-promoting urban environments 2 .
Thus, this study aims to investigate the quantity and quality of open public spaces and physical activity facilities in Florianopolis.

Study site
The study was carried out in the city of Florianopolis, capital of the state of Santa Catarina, located on the coast of southern Brazil.Florianopolis has population of 421,240 thousand inhabitants, population density of 623.68 inhabitants/km 2 and human development index above the national average (0.847 in Florianopolis and 0.727 in Brazil) 10 .

Selection of open public spaces
Initially, OPSs were identified from information available at the Municipal Health Secretariat of Florianopolis based on the 2012 database.In order to update data, an interview with community health agents in health centers was conducted to identify spaces not included in the lists.Finally, OPSs were geo-referenced in the Google Earth program and visited by a team of trained evaluators.The types of OPSs were classified into squares/gardens (≤2 street blocks), parks/woods (≥2 street blocks), garden beds (central streets and avenues), community institutions and/or residents' association (containing open areas of free access to the population) and free areas, composed of seaside coastal regions.

Data collection
The presence and quality of OPSs and physical activity facilities were obtained through the method of systematic observation of the environment, through the Physical Activity Resource Assessment (PARA) instrument 12 , also used in the Brazilian context 9,13 .The instrument is composed of a checklist that evaluates the presence/quantity of physical activity facilities (courts and sports fields, outdoor gym, playgrounds, among others); comfort items (picnic tables, bathrooms, benches, lighting, drinkers, changing rooms and trash cans); and incivility items (broken glass, presence of animals, loose dogs, evidence of alcohol use, graffiti, scattered garbage, signs of vandalism and high grass).The quality of these items is established by a likert scale, ranging from 0 (negative pole) to 3 points (positive pole), thus: a) '0' represents the absence of structures; b) '1' presence of structures with poor quality (established for present items or structures, but that do not offer conditions of use due to poor state of conservation); c) '2' presence of structure with average quality (considered when the structure can be used, but needs improvement); and d) '3' presence of structures with good quality (those that have their characteristics preserved in good state of conservation).For the presence of incivility items, the likert scale is inverted, where '0' refers to the non-existence of incivilities; '1' the place is in good condition, but at least one sign of incivility is observed; '2' 2 to 4 incivility items are present and, '3' more than 5 incivility items are observed, revealing poor quality 12 .
The number of OPS was counted according to classification of the space evaluated.For the quality analysis, a quality index of OPS was computed through the sum of the quality averages of physical activity facilities, the average quality of comfort structures, subtracted from the mean value of the presence of incivilities 5 .This index varied from -3 to 6 points, with positive values indicating higher quality of OPS and below zero greater presence of incivilities.For the purposes of analysis, this quality index was composed of three categories, being poor quality (category ≤0), OPSs with higher incivilities, average quality (0.1 to 2.9) and values above the median (category ≥3) good quality.For comfort quality, facilities were evaluated according to the same likert scale, adopting values '0' non-existent, '1' poor quality, '2' average quality and '3' good quality.With regard to incivilities, for analysis only, the poles of the scale have been inverted and thus, the larger the scale value, the better the quality of the space.
The analysis of the presence/amount of physical activity facilities was calculated as the sum of the types of structures present in OPS.According to the description of the structure quality, the instrument's own likert scale was adopted, being '1' poor quality, '2' average quality and '3' good quality.After that, the presence of physical activity facilities by type of public space was analyzed, being distributed into four categories: "nonexistent", "presence of one facilities", "two facilities", "three facilities" and "≥4 facilities".

Statistical analyses
Data were entered in the Excel software by the double typing method to avoid errors in the process.Absolute and relative frequency distribution was used to describe the presence of OPS and physical activity facilities; quality of OPS (categories) and physical activity facilities (categories); comfort structures and incivilities, as well as measures such as mean, median, minimum and maximum for the presentation of OPS quality as a continuous variable.Analyses were performed by the SPSS software version 17.0.

DISCUSSION
The data of the present study are pioneer in the context of Florianopolis.The highest proportion of OPSs is composed of squares/gardens (59.8%).More than 50% of spaces presented good quality, but 48.1% need improvements in comfort and less presence of incivilities, such as high grass, scattered litter and graffiti.In addition, the options of physical activities facilities in OPS are reduced, being more frequent the presence of playgrounds, outdoor gyms and soccer fields/courts.The latter, for the most part, did not show good conditions of use.In general, greater proportion of OPS contain only one physical activity facility, which denotes the need for greater public and private investments to broaden and diversify the options for active leisure to the population.
Evidence shows that public leisure spaces in urban centers are important, since they are associated with greater practice of physical activities 2,14 .In Florianopolis, the amount of OPS is reduced compared to other cities in Brazil, but more than half (51.9 %) are in good conditions of use, unlike other regions of the country such as Parintis/AM 15 , Cuiaba/MT 8 and Pelotas/RS 9 .Possibly, the greater proportion of OPS with good quality in Florianopolis may be due to the adoption of squares and parks by private companies that are jointly responsible for their maintenance, in exchange for the disclosure of their brands.This can be an interesting strategy to improve the quality of spaces and encourage active leisure 1,5 .In addition, adjusting the quality of existing spaces can contribute not only to the city sustainability but also the equity of access to the local population for health promotion 9 .
About 48.2% of surveyed OPSs still need better adaptations, especially in the reduction of incivilities, such as scattered garbage, high grass and graffiti, as they make spaces more vulnerable to crime, as observed in the city of Curitiba 16 .Comfort items such as good lighting were present in more than 54.7% of public spaces of Florianopolis, which in addition to improving the perception of safety by users, can contribute to the engagement in physical activities throughout the day 16,17 .The presence of trash cans (45.8%), benches (55.1%) and picnic tables (29.0%) with good quality in the spaces evaluated also serve to support moments of rest, socialization and contemplation 18 .Evidence shows that each new comfort attribute perceived in parks increases by three times the probability of being highly used 19 .Thus, the maintenance, aesthetics and good quality of OPS may explain, in part, why some places are more frequented than others 11,19 .
Leisure physical activity facilities are also important factors for the frequent use of public spaces 20 .In 29% of spaces evaluated in Florianopolis, there were no structures for the practice of physical activity.Consequently, these spaces are more used for less active activities, such as rest and/or contemplation 18 .In general, facilities such as playgrounds, outdoor gyms and soccer fields/courts were more frequent, only the latter with less than half in good conditions of use.However, the type of facilities present for physical activity in an OPS may favor some age groups of the population to the detriment of others 20 .For example, children's playgrounds are more frequented by children and adolescents 21 , while outdoor gyms favor the use by adults and older adults 22 .Hiking trails, although little present in the evaluated public spaces, stimulate greater engagement in walking activities, regardless of socioeconomic conditions of cities 23 .Thus, soil occupation in Florianopolis, although reduced, due to its geographic characteristics (insular and continental portion) may be more attractive if OPSs had greater diversity of physical activity facilities.In addition to serving to the different age groups, they may also favor the active leisure choices of residents 24 .
It could be observed that parks/woods were OPSs that obtained more than four physical activity facilities (44.4%).Possibly these spaces may be the greatest potentiates of engagement in physical activities, due to their larger area in square meters, and to the greater amount of sport-recreational events by the greater number of physical activity facilities present in these spaces [19][20][21] , as observed in other studies 24,25 .Evidence shows that the frequency of use of a OPS can be justified by the types of physical activities offered 20,21 .Therefore, garden beds, community institutions, free areas and squares/gardens can enhance the use of spaces if they are attractive to a greater diversity of interests of the population 19 .This not only contributes to the adoption and maintenance of the recommended levels of physical activities, but also in the health co-benefits 3 .
The present study presents strengths, as it evaluates the quantity and quality of OPS and physical activity facilities in all regions of the city using an internationally recognized instrument, validated and adapted to the Brazilian context.The findings contribute to reduce the lack of results in the area about the characteristics of OPS for health promotion in Latin American regions, enabling future actions and strategies to be made to make cities friendlier to healthy practices, thus allowing the proximity of data.
However, some limitations to the analysis of findings should be considered.The identification of the types of public spaces present is characteristic of the city; therefore, they could not be generalizable to other contexts.Public spaces such as beaches and ecological trails, despite the large amount in the city, positively contributing to the practice of physical activity, were not investigated because they were considered natural environments, which evaluation would be impossible with the instrument used.Potential sites to be evaluated were previously identified through a listing provided by community health agents, in addition to visits by researchers to verify and confirm sites not included in the listing.However, places that may not have been identified in one of these possibilities may not have been evaluated.
Finally, it was identified that more than half of OPSs of Florianopolis are squares/gardens, followed by free areas.Overall, a higher proportion presented good quality, but 48.2% required improvements in comfort, incivilities and greater diversity of physical activity facilities.There are frequent structures for physical activities such as playgrounds, outdoor gyms and soccer fields/courts, but only the latter with less quantity in good quality.However, almost one-third of OPSs did not have physical activity facilities, possibly because they are used for less active activities.These data may contribute to stimulate future studies in the understanding of the patterns of use of OPSin different cities, profile of users and frequency

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Proportion of structures for physical activities present in open public spaces of Florianopolis, 2015 (n = 377).
A descriptive observational cross-sectional study of existing OPS was carried out between August 2015 and January 2016.The ethical procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee for Research with Humans of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (protocol No. 47789015.8.0000.012) and Coordination of Research of the Health area of Florianopolis.

Table 1 .
Description of the presence / quantity and quality of open public spaces in Florianópolis, 2015 (n = 214).

Table 2 .
Frequency and quality of comfort and incivility items observed in open public spaces of Florianopolis, 2015 (n = 214).Proportion of the quality of physical activity facilities present in open public spaces of Florianopolis, 2015 (n = 377).