PLAYGROUNDS NATIONAL STUDY OF

THE INFLUENCE OF DESIGN ON USE AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN 60 PLAYGROUNDS IN 10 US CITIES

STUDIO LUDO is a 501(c)3 non-profit founded in 2015 whose mission is building better play through research, advocacy, and design.

Since 2015, our team has led and partnered on three major play research studies (the London Study of Playgrounds, the New York City Study of Play Features and Value, and the National Study of Playgrounds) that combined include data on over 60,000 people in 100 playgrounds in the US and UK. This dataset is the most current picture of behavior and user preference in play environments in the world, and it directly influences all of our play designs.

THE NATIONAL STUDY OF PLAYGROUNDS was led by principal investigator, Dr. Deborah Cohen of Kaiser Permanente, who studies how environmental factors influence the health of communities and affect health disparities.

Additional partners included Dr. Thomas McKenzie, professor emeritus of San Diego State University; Dr. Bing Han, senior research scientist biostatistician at Kaiser Permanente; Dr. Deborah Young, director of the Division of Behavioral Research for the Department of Research & Evaluation at Kaiser Permanente: Stephanie Williamson, Research Programmer, RAND Corporation; and Sarah Eng, biostatistician at Kaiser Permanente.

The study was supported in part by NHLBI # R01HL145145.

We regard play as a primary way that humans learn and connect.

We believe play to be a cross-generational and tolerance building aspect of living in community together. Play builds grit, prevents burnout, ignites joy through movement, and helps us become better people together.