Research Advances of Urban outdoor environment (UOE) and Children’ Physical Activity

Abstract

Urban outdoor environment (UOE) is considered an important environmental setting for children’s physical activity (PA) which is recognized as a promising non-pharmacological approach to improve children’s health, particularly in addressing issues like obesity and over-weight. With a substantial increase in the volume of publications on the topics of UOE and PA, the study aims to understand the research advancements by exploring the publication pattern, knowledge foundation, hotspots, and trends. A total of 1203 publications (2000-2023) were re-trieved and processed by the scientometric analysis. Results show the growth of publications in an accelerating speed. The topics covered in the publications are becoming more diversified and interdisciplinary with an emphasis on the public health and environmental study.  The hotspots within the domain include: (1) UOE’s influence on children’s health outcomes by PA; (2) the UOE and children’s PA in the neighborhood setting; (3) UOE’s characteristics associated with chil-dren’s travel and recreational behaviors. The research frontiers are gradually moving towards: (1) multi-health benefits from UOE by encouraging PA; (2) UOE and children’s PA in different en-vironmental settings; (3) UOE and children’s PA in the less-developing countries and district, (4) perceptions of UOE and children’s PA. Our findings highlight the importance of fostering the collaborations between different disciplines and districts to advance knowledge and promote evidence-based interventions aimed at improving children's PA through UOE.