Â鶹ÒùÔº

Beyond the established benefits of physical activity on human health, there is increasing evidence showing the importance of outdoor free play for young children’s current and long-term physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Geography Assistant ProfessorÌýFederico Andrade Rivas joined a research collaboration led by Dr. Emily Gemmell (University of British Columbia) to develop Canada’s first nationwideÌý to assess how urban environments support young children’s outdoor free play.

Children are increasingly growing up in car-centric cities with limited access to spaces that promote free play. This is concerning, as most of their physical activity is a by-product of play. Moreover, research and policy often focus on adults’ behaviours and mobility patterns when assessing how built environments influence human health. Thus, current solutions to improve physical activity and well-being through urban interventions often assume that children will benefit from designs and metrics tailored to adults’ mobility and behaviour. Adults often assume that outdoor playtime is limited to playgrounds and parks, whereas children view almost any space as potentially playable. In order to contribute to filling up these gaps in research and policy, the team developedÌý. This effort led to a publication in the journalÌý and Canada national levelÌý.Ìý

The playability index was built from an evidence-based framework for neighbourhood playability among children developed by the team. This framework identified five major domains influencing outdoor free play: spaces for play, social, traffic/pedestrian and natural environments, and child-relevant destinations. The team approach to build the index consisted of four steps: selection of indicators to operationalize distinct concepts within these domains, a survey of experts to inform the weighting of metric components and obtain feedback on indicator selection and finally, weighting and aggregation of indicators and domains into a composite metric.Ìý

±õ³¾±è´Ç°ù³Ù²¹²Ô³Ù±ô²â,Ìý showed that average scores did not vary much across the 35 Canadian cities included in the study. However, there is wide variation in neighbourhood playability within the same city, which ranges from 52-77%. The team also found that 39% of children lived in areas where at least one key factor, like safe streets or access to nature, scored in the bottom 10% for all neighbourhoods in the city. Moreover, for a majority of cities, materially disadvantaged neighbourhoods had lower playability scores, leading to health equity and environmental justice issues. Even within the same city, children experience vast difference in access to environments that support outdoor play and physical, cognitive, and social-emotional well-being.Ìý

The potential application of the playability index operates at multiple scales. It enables small area-level assessment of supportiveness, barriers and facilitators to young children's outdoor play, while proposes a theoretical framework and methodological approach that may be adapted to develop indices of playability across diverse urban contexts. This work highlights the importance of research that can inform interventions at the local and regional level, while promoting the creation of similar tools in other urban contexts like the US. In addition, it contributes to shape the public discourse on who and what matters when we evaluate and design our cities.Ìý

Figure from the published article (Gemmell et al. 2026; Cities).ÌýDistribution of playability and domain score deciles for postal codes within the Toronto metropolitan area. Playability score with alternate measure of social environment.