Visitor and staff protection during COVID 19: Lessons for future emergencies.

Abstract

Parks and recreation facilities and services play important roles in community health and well-being in a number of dimensions, including physical activity (Kaufman et al., 2019), healthy weight (Potwarka, Kaczynski, & Flack, 2008), and mental health (Lee, 2020). However, parks and recreation agencies are also workplaces, and protection of staff from COVID-19 is an important management concern (Cirrincione et al., 2020). Through the beginning of the pandemic, many parks remained open by explicit exemption from shutdown and stay-at-home orders. In addition, park maintenance work must generally be performed in person, and even outdoor workers are at risk of contracting COVID-19 (Bulfone, Malekinejad, Rutherford, & Razani, 2020). ​ ​ Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when state governments were responding to this novel situation with little information, US parks and recreation agencies were mandated to continue services under restrictive orders while protecting both workers and visitors. ​ ​ In this exploratory study, the researchers asked: ​1) How, and to what degree, did local parks and recreation agencies respond to and implement governors' orders and public health recommendations? ​2) To what degree did they treat staff and visitors as distinct COVID-19 prevention targets? ​3) How can government and technical assistance organizations better support these agencies in future public health emergencies?​