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Abstract

Purpose: "parkrun" is a free and increasingly popular weekly 5-km walk/run international community event, representing a novel setting for physical activity (PA) promotion. However, little is known about who participates or why. This study aimed to identify sociodemographic, health, behavioral, individual, social, and environmental factors associated with higher levels of participation.Design: Cross-sectional.Setting: Tasmania, Australia; June 2016.Participants: Three hundred seventy two adult parkrun participants.Measures: Online survey measuring sociodemographic, health, individual, social and environmental factors, parkrun participation, and PA.Analysis: Descriptive statistics, zero-truncated Poisson regression models.Results: Respondents (n = 371) were more commonly women (58%), aged 35 to 53 years (54%), and occasional or nonwalkers/runners (53%) at registration. A total of 44% had overweight/obesity. Half had non-adult children, most spoke English at home, and 7% reported PA-limiting illness/injury/disability. Average run/walk time was 30.2 ± 7.4 minutes. Compared to regular walkers/runners at registration, nonwalkers/runners were less commonly partnered, more commonly had overweight/obesity, less physically active, and had poorer self-rated health. Multivariate analyses revealed relative parkrun participation was inversely associated with education level and positively associated with interstate parkrun participation, perceived social benefits, self-efficacy for parkrun, and intentions to participate.Conclusion: parkrun attracts nonwalkers/runners and population groups hard to engage in physical activity. Individual- and social-level factors were associated with higher relative parkrun participation. parkrun's scalability, accessibility, and wide appeal confers a research imperative to investigate its potential for public health gain.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Cleland, V and Nash, M and Sharman, MJ and Claflin, S
Keywords:	behavior, body weight, body weights and measures, epidemiologic methods, epidemiologic studies, exercise, health, health promotion, life style
Journal or Publication Title:	American Journal of Health Promotion
Publisher:	Amer J Health Promotion Inc
ISSN:	0890-1171
DOI / ID Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117118770106
Copyright Information:	Copyright The Author(s) 2018
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Cleland, V Google Scholar: Nash, M UTAS Profile: Nash, M
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