Involving community stakeholders to increase park use and physical activity.

Objective: The aim of this study is to describe implementation of a randomized controlled trial of community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches to increase park use and physical activity across 33 diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Methods: Fifty parks were randomly assigned based on park size, facilities and programs, and neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics to: park director (PD, 17 parks); PD and park advisory board of interested community members (PD+PAB, 16 parks); and no-intervention control (17 parks) arms. Between 2007 and 2012, PDs and PABs from the 33 intervention parks participated in community engagement, baseline assessment, marketing training, intervention design and implementation, and follow-up assessment.