Parental Perceived Safety Using PPGIS and Photo Survey across Urban Parks in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Exposing children to green environments has multiple benefits. However, safety concerns may discourage parents from allowing their children to participate in physical leisure activities. This study employed a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) questionnaire to explore whether and how park characteristics influence safety perceptions of 241 parents regarding their children’s active, unstructured play and independent mobility. The survey was distributed to parents who were accompanying their children in Cairo’s Al-Azhar and Al-Dawliya parks. Respondents identified places they considered safe and unsafe and reported their overall perceived level of safety based on photographs taken in the two parks. The results showed that parents were more afraid of the threat of crime compared to other potential risks. Moreover, secluded and densely vegetated places with inadequate lighting were perceived as unsafe. The study contributes to the ongoing discussion on creating safe environments for children and proposes ways to reduce parents’ safety concerns.

Keywords:

• Children’s environment
• parental perceived safety
• park characteristics
• PPGIS

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Author’s Contribution

AAM: Concepualization, research design, project management, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, software, visualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition; JK: Concepualization, writing—review and editing; EŁ: writing—review and editing; FAA, SM &RA: onsite data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. This work was also funded by an IDUB grant, the University of Lodz.