Green space accessibility – conceptual model

Conceptual model of factors affecting children’s access to urban greenspace, organized into five categories, with overarching factors and key relations depicted in the middle. Key question to each cluster stated outside the encompassing ellipsoid: access with and by Whom? From Where? How? To Where? And Why?

Title	Children’s access to urban greenspace: a survey of factors and measures
Source	Teeuwen, R., Bozzon, A., & Psyllidis, A. (2024). Cities & Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2024.2387931
Level of evidence	Direct evidence plus literature review
Approach	·      Workshops for 27 participants, including researchers and practitioners in children’s health and wellbeing, and practitioners working on green urban development for children. ·      Focus on children aged 6-11.
Findings	·      A visual conceptual model of factors affecting children’s access to urban greenspaces (see fig 1). ·      Factors affecting children’s access to greenspace : o   Reachability and proximity (the route connecting the child’s starting setting (school, home) to the greenspace) o   Attractiveness (how well the greenspace reflect the child’s, and their companions’ preferences and motivations) o   Safety perceptions.  ·      Understanding children’s motivation to visit certain places is valuable to researchers and practitioners, and has been overlooked in research.
Recommendations	·      Future research and policy actions on greenspace access should consider age, mobility, and social factors such as motivation.  ·      A holistic approach to improving green space access is vital, as policy interventions designed to address one factor may affect other important factors. ·      Use the conceptual model to guide measures to improve children’s access to urban green space.