# Neighborhood Park Youth Sports Program Fee Waiver and Intensive Family Outreach to Promote Physical Activity in Low-Income Children Ages 6-12 Years

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · 2024 · $722,533

## Abstract

Neighborhood parks hold great potential as attractive and accessible settings to promote and enhance physical
activity (PA) among racially/ethnically diverse low-income youth. However, little park-based intervention
research has been conducted to explore how this potential might be realized. No previous park-level
intervention has experimentally evaluated youth sports program fee waivers or intensive park outreach
strategies to increase child enrollment and participation in park-based youth sports programs. The proposed
research combines these promising intervention strategies into a single intervention and uses a gold-standard
randomized controlled study design, and focuses on a low-income, racially/ethnically diverse sample at highest
risk for developmental declines in physical activity. The proposed study evaluates the effects of a park-level
intervention to increase moderate/vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and decrease sedentary time among low-
income racially/ethnically diverse children ages 6-12 yrs. Neighborhood parks (n=24) will be randomized for a
2-year period to one of two experimental conditions: 1) Intensive Outreach and Youth Sports Program Fee
Waiver; or 2) Comparison Condition: Current Outreach and Youth Sports Program Fee Structure. The
intervention outreach and fee waiver components are expected to support parents to enroll their child in park-
based youth sports programs by decreasing social/cultural and economic barriers to child enrollment and
participation. The evaluation cohort will consist of 432 children ages 6-12 yrs who reside in one of the 24 park
neighborhoods randomized to the experimental conditions. Measurements from individual children will be
collected at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months. Specific Aims of this research are: Specific Aim 1: To evaluate
the effects of a park-level intervention on changes in child MVPA over 6, 12 and 24 months; Specific Aim 2:
To evaluate the effects of a park-level interventions on changes in child sedentary behavior over 6, 12 and 24
months; Exploratory Aim 3: To evaluate the effects of a park-level interventions on changes in parent light
activity and sedentary behavior over 6, 12 and 24 months. Hypothesis 1: Children who live in a neighborhood
where the park is randomized to intensive park outreach and fee waiver will have larger increases in MVPA
and decreases in sedentary behavior at 6, 12 and 24 months relative to children who live in a comparison
neighborhood. Hypothesis 2: Parents of children who live in a neighborhood where the park is randomized to
intensive park outreach and fee waiver will have larger increases in light PA and decreases in sedentary
behavior at 6, 12 and 24 months relative to parents of children who live in a comparison neighborhood.
IMPACT: The proposed research will provide evidence about the effectiveness of a park-based intervention
that includes intensive park outreach and youth sports program fee waivers on changes in child physical
activity in l...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10861083
- **Project number:** 5R01HL151429-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
- **Principal Investigator:** SIMONE A. FRENCH
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $722,533
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-07-01 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10861083

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10861083, Neighborhood Park Youth Sports Program Fee Waiver and Intensive Family Outreach to Promote Physical Activity in Low-Income Children Ages 6-12 Years (5R01HL151429-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10861083. Licensed CC0.

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