ALPhA
The Informal Appropriation of Public Space for Leisure Physical Activity in Lagos and Yaoundé
The ALPhA study explores ways that public space is being used for physical activity (exercise) in Lagos, Nigeria and Yaoundé, Cameroon. Over 3 years, the project sought to understand the types of ALPhA spaces that exist, the experiences of people who use these ALPhA spaces, and air pollution, safety and injury risks. The interdisciplinary team members come from across several fields including urban planning, public health, chemistry, engineering as well as citizen scientists recruited through public recruitment.
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Africa is experiencing rapid urbanisation alongside poorly governed infrastructure development and increasing unhealthy living. These factors contribute to an increased burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. These NCDs also contribute to premature death disproportionately affecting the economically active and jeopardising development. The built environment is a critical determinant of physical activity, a risk factor for NCDs, but due to unmet need for the necessary infrastructure for exercise, public spaces in African cities are increasingly informally used for exercise, sometimes under hazardous conditions such as toxic air pollution. As a result of a lack of surveillance data, the health risks of exercise in public spaces are unknown.
Methods
The study, which was conducted in Lagos and Yaoundé from 2019-2022, works at the interface of public health, urban infrastructure, urban planning, environmental engineering, and atmospheric science.
Using participatory approaches, we investigated exercise in public space to re-imagine urban space for healthy, safe exercise in Lagos, Nigeria and Yaoundé, Cameroon, countries with similar demographic and NCD risk profile.
We adopted an asset-based approach, we asked members of the public who are claiming public space for exercise (we call these ALPhA spaces) to tell us about public spaces they use (or have observed to be used) for leisure physical activity. Using geolocated multimedia data (photos and text), our citizen scientists captured features of these spaces that pose health risks from air pollution exposures and safety and injury risks which may cancel out benefits to health from exercise. In addition, participants captured information about the motivations and experiences of the people that use these spaces (ALPhAs!).
In a subset of ALPhAs, we collected further information about their individual health profiles and more information about the accessibility of these spaces.
Through two stakeholder workshops in each city, we engaged multisectoral actors to shape the data collection and share their own experiences (Workshop 1, September 2021) and to share results from this study to inform urban infrastructure development strategies and the co-design of public space interventions that support equitable access to healthy safe physical activity opportunities in Africa’s cities (Workshop 2, May/June 2022).
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we extended this project to conduct opinion analyses of public space leisure physical activity in Lagos. In particular, using social media analyses, we will explore public perceptions of government lockdown restrictions (and enforcement), and the impact of these lockdown measures on the perceptions, nature and frequency of exercise in public spaces. Our findings highlight the importance of context-aware public health messaging that safely encourages physical activity in the short term and health foresight interventions to reduce vulnerability to future health emergencies long-term.
Key Findings and Recommendations
The detailed project report can be found here
The key messages that emerged are as follows:
- Urban planning and urban infrastructure play a critical role in determining access to physical activity. Where people live determines how much physical activity they can engage in. Planned gated communities have higher physical activity intensity due to availability of safe communal playgrounds and well paved lit streets. Residents of unplanned low-income communities are compelled to appropriate public infrastructure for physical activity due to lack of adequate infrastructure in their communities.
- The side and middle of the road are the most appropriated public spaces for physical activity in our study cities. However, they often lack vital features that would enhance conduciveness for physical activity such as safety, lighting, signages and gender and disability friendliness. As such, despite its health benefits, engaging in physical activity comes with added risk of injury and air pollution vulnerability.
- Dominant leisure physical activities include individual sports (walking, running and jogging) and team sports (aerobics, cycling, football and boxing), largely due to relative ease of access, and availability of alternative infrastructure in the absence of dedicated public recreational facilities across cities. Public space elements such as good roads, dedicated bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, speed breakers, sensors and pollution monitors, and community parks that can promote physical activity are also lacking.
- Time and location where physical activity is carried out determines vulnerability to injury and air pollution. Air pollution has negative socio-economic and health impacts
- There is insufficient air quality monitoring in cities due to scarcity of in situ air quality monitoring devices, hence we do not know the extent of vulnerability/risk.
- Physical activity initiatives across cities are largely micro-scale and driven by non-governmental actors operating in silos.
- Social media is an agent for active physical activity and health-promoting messaging and advocacy.
The overarching recommendations from this project are:
- Co-production is necessary for enhancing access to public space for physical activity. In order to make an impact, key actors must be involved from infrastructure conceptualisation, co-design, advocacy, implementation and management. These actors include formal and informal sports authorities, government agencies and ministries in charge of physical planning and environment, security, health, youth and social development, as well as civil society actors, sports promoters and host communities.
- It is imperative to consider the needs of special groups, such as women, children and people living with disabilities, in the design and management of public spaces.
- Design of urban infrastructure must take into consideration how public spaces are used for physical activity, and the necessary modifications, to enhance landscaping features, cycle and running tracks and appropriateness for physical activities, must be done. Initiatives and programs encouraging the upgrade of existing public spaces, the provision of waste receptacles (colour coded), first aid boxes to counter the risk of poor air quality, safety, injury, and diseases, installation of air quality monitoring devices, and creating opportunities for competitions and non-competitive recreational sports are crucial for community members to use public spaces.
- Targeted initiatives such as the implementation of non-motorised transport policy, bike-sharing initiatives and air quality monitoring are necessary to improve air quality and enhance safe physical activity.
- Social media should be leveraged for more active health messaging and physical activity promotion.
Project outputs
Appropriation of public space and urban infrastructure for leisure physical activity (ALPhA) -Second Lagos and Yaoundé stakeholder workshop reports
The research project “Informal Appropriation of Public Space for Leisure Physical Activity in Lagos and Yaoundé (ALPhA)”, led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the Universities of Lagos and Yaoundé, aims to re-imagine urban space for healthy, safe leisure physical activity in Lagos,
The other pandemic: social media engagement around non-communicable disease preventive behaviours during Nigeria’s COVID-19 lockdowns
Abstract Given the complexity of global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is typical for crisis-focused interventions to have a multiplicity of impacts. Some of these impacts may yield positive or negative externalities for health priorities that do not have the same perceived
A Systematic Review Protocol of Opportunities for Noncommunicable Disease Prevention via Public Space Initiatives in African Cities
Abstract Public spaces have the potential to produce equitable improvements in population health. This mixed-methods systematic review aims to understand the components of, determinants, risks, and outcomes associated with public space initiatives in African cities. This study will include quantitative and qualitative study designs that
Appropriation of public space and urban infrastructure for leisure physical activity (ALPhA)
-Lagos and Yaoundé stakeholder workshop reports
As part of the research project on Informal Appropriation of Public Space for Leisure Physical Activity in Lagos and Yaoundé, led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the Universities of Lagos and Yaoundé, the ALPhA research team hosted a first stakeholder workshop on
The urban environment and leisure physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic: a view from Lagos
In this commentary, we highlight five aspects of the ordinary – known interactions between urban environments and physical activity – that are amplified by the extraordinary – an unprecedented societal response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Using Lagos, Nigeria as a case study, we illustrate the possibility of re-thinking urban development and the potential for urban (re)form to address health inequalities in African megacities in the context of post-COVID-19 pandemic.
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