A265: Safety Assessment and Optimization Strategies for Children's Outdoor Public Physical Activity Spaces

Outdoor physical activity (PA) is essential for children's healthy development. However, existing public spaces for PA harbor safety hazards, leading to frequent accidental injuries among children. Current research mainly focuses on individual spaces or singular risk factors, lacking a comprehensive safety assessment system. Guided by the child-friendly concept, this study aims to construct a safety assessment index system for children's outdoor PA spaces, identify subjective and objective risk factors, and provide a scientific basis for urban planning. We integrated 11 national standards and industry guidelines, 125 core academic references, and field investigation data from 13 typical spaces in Shanghai (e.g., community parks and city squares). NVivo12 Plus was employed for three-level coding analysis (initial, focused, and axial coding). After achieving theoretical saturation and conducting reliability and validity tests, 32 key coding nodes were established. A questionnaire based on the 5-point Likert scale was designed and administered through stratified sampling (by gender, age, and income) to 561 caregivers with an effective response rate of 90.7%. SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 26.0 were utilized for reliability and validity tests, one-sample T-tests, and principal component analysis to determine the weights of each assessment indicator. This study developed a safety assessment system for children's outdoor PA spaces, structured into 7 dimensions and 32 indicators. Key objective environmental factors influencing safety include site facilities (weight 0.240), spatial conditions (weight 0.161), and material conditions (weight 0.130). Specific indicators, such as ground surfacing characteristics and fall protection, require particular attention. Children's behavioral levels (weight 0.289) and safety awareness (weight 0.251) are the most significant individual subjective factors. The contradiction between caregivers' performance (weight 0.168) and insufficient actual participation highlights the urgent need to strengthen safety education and dynamic management. This study systematically quantifies safety risks in children's outdoor public activity spaces, revealing complex multidimensional factor interactions. Three recommendations are proposed: (1) optimizing space design with enhanced ground safety and age-appropriate facilities; (2) implementing a dual-track monitoring system that incorporates smart sensors and manual inspections to monitor high-risk behaviors and assess facility conditions; (3) delivering tiered safety education for children, families, and communities. The research findings can provide standardized assessment tools for child-friendly city development, promote multi-sector collaboration, and enhance the safety of children's outdoor PA to support their healthy growth. Future research could expand the sample scope to validate the assessment system's universality.