Page Text: Health and Wellness
Parks and recreation is vital to community health and well-being.
We must ensure that all people have access to these spaces, programs and services that remain essential to community vitality and serve as a key factor in advancing health equity, improving individual and community-level health outcomes, and enhancing quality of life.
NRPA believes that park and recreation professionals are key to a fully integrated public health system and play a vital role in meeting the evolving health needs of their communities. They are uniquely positioned to create, in partnership with the community, public health leaders and other local organizations, upstream solutions that catalyze and transform their systems into holistic and people-centered community wellness hubs. In serving as community wellness hubs, parks and recreation connects community members to comprehensive programs, services and spaces that dismantle systemic barriers to health, especially for people of color and low-income communities, while investing in efforts that support and advance health and well-being holistically.
At the core of this work is equity. By centering health equity and embedding it into all that we do, we can ensure that all people — regardless of race, class, ability or identity — have a fair and just opportunity to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes.
NRPA commits to championing and evaluating local solutions, building strategic partnerships, developing resources and best practices, advancing policy change, enhancing professional development opportunities and lifting up impactful stories, to support this transformation into community wellness hubs and help park and recreation professionals realize their full potential as public health agents.
Commit to Health
NRPA’s Commit to Health campaign supports the goals of improving healthy food access, reducing obesity and chronic disease, and fostering social supports at local park and recreation sites. Park and recreation sites can join the national movement to support community health and wellness.