Psychosocial Factors Influencing Outdoor Engagement Rates of Racial and Ethnic Minorities Living In the United States: A Scoping Review

Background and Purpose: While the dominant narrative suggests parks are for the common good, promoting rest and health for all, many individuals of racial or ethnic minority in the U.S. do not feel welcome in public outdoor spaces. Psychosocial factors, such as experiences of racism and discrimination, cultural differences, generational land-based traumas, and stereotypes, contribute to alienation in public outdoor spaces. For outdoor spaces to truly be designed for the common good, social work researchers, practitioners, and policymakers must understand psychosocial factors influencing inequitable outdoor activity uptake. This scoping review is the first rigorous inquiry to organize literature on psychosocial factors influencing outdoor engagement relevant to racial and ethnic minority groups living in the U.S.

Methods: A search for peer-reviewed literature in CINAHL Ultimate, APA PsycInfo (Proquest), Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, and PubMed databases captured 28,977 articles. Additional articles were collected through citation searching (n = 170), Google Scholar (n = 18), Dissertations & Theses Global (n = 5), and expert opinion (n = 7). To be included in this study, articles had to include outdoor activities or spaces, identify psychosocial factors influencing outdoor engagement, center on racial or ethnic minorities living in the U.S., and be published in English. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies were eligible. After abstracts and full texts were independently reviewed by two trained reviewers in Covidence, 51 studies were moved to the data extraction phase. This study is registered with the Open Science Framework.

Findings: Preliminary results suggest that most studies focused on perceptions of crime and safety as a barrier to outdoor engagement, including gun violence, gangs, drug use, homelessness, visible weapons, and fear for personal safety. Other commonly researched psychosocial factors were experiences of harassment and racial profiling, cultural differences in preferred engagement with the outdoors, parental concerns limiting child engagement with the outdoors, stigma, and influential stereotypes, such as “White people activities.” Only a few studies explored how colorism, stigma, stereotypes, cultural clothing, social class, gender, and fear of child protective services and immigration enforcement can present challenges to outdoor engagement. Many articles included the consequences of psychosocial factors on outdoor engagement, indicating outcomes such as staying at home, working out at gyms, hypervigilance, only participating in group settings, wearing clothing that signals participation in leisure activities, limited travel, and increases in activism and community programming. Most studies centered on African American and Latino communities; only a few studies centering American Indians, Asian Americans, refugees, or Pacific Islanders were found.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings suggest psychosocial dynamics are significant factors affecting outdoor engagement rates, especially for African Americans and Latinos. Due to limited studies centering other racial and ethnic groups, further research is warranted. Social workers addressing inequitable access to the outdoors, environmental racism, and socio-environmental interventions should consider psychosocial factors influencing outdoor engagement in addition to structural barriers.