title: Safety assessment in the urban park environment in Alborz Province, Iran.
abstract: Urban parks, as one of the recreational and sports sectors, could cause serious injuries among different ages if the safety issues in their design are not considered. These injuries can result from the equipment in the park, including play and sports equipment, or even from environmental factors, too. Lack of safety benchmark in parks will impact on the development of future proposals. In this article, attempts are made to survey the important safety factors in the urban parks including playgrounds, fitness equipment, pedestrian surface and environmental factors into a risk assessment. Hence, a checklist of safety factors was used. A Yes or No descriptor was allocated to any factor for determining safety level. The study also suggests recommendations for future planning concerning existing failures for designers. It was found that the safety level of the regional and local parks differ from each other.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, Department of Occupational Health Engineering, University of Tarbiat Modarres, Tehran, Iran. morteza_avesta@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Morteza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oostakhan
authors.forename: Aliakbar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Babaei
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D010988:Play and Playthings / Q000293:injuries; D011998:Recreation; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012449:Safety / Q000592:standards*; D017751:Safety Management; D014505:Urban Population; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control