Macy Johnston, Honors Degree Candidate & Student Nurse 

My name is Macy Johnston, and I’m a first-year honors nursing student at Washington State University. I’m passionate about researching access to recreation and its impact on stress levels. Exercise is crucial for stress relief and overall well-being. Using the All of Us database, I’ve explored how limited access to recreation affects underserved communities. I’m excited to continue this research and find ways to address these challenges.

Thanks for your interest,

Macy Johnston I macy.johnston@wsu.edu

References
  • Denny, J. C., Rutter, J. L., Goldstein, D. B., Philippakis, A., Smoller, J. W., Jenkins, G., & Dishman, E. (2019). The “All of Us” Research Program. The New England Journal of Medicine, 381(7), 668–676.
  • Klaperski, S. (2018). Handbuch Stressregulation und sport. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Perceived-stress. Health Assured. (n.d.). https://www.healthassured.org/blog/perceived-stress/ [PDF] a global measure of perceived stress. | semantic scholar. (n.d.).    https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-global-measure-of-perceived-stress.-Cohen
  • Nappo, N. Job stress and interpersonal relationships cross country evidence from the EU15: a correlation analysis. BMC Public Health 20, 1143 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09253-9
Findings

A chi-square tests of association with Cramer’s V effect sizes were performed to examine the relationship between Cohen’s perceived stress scale (PSS) and two select variables from the PANES International Prevalence Study (IPS) on Physical Activity.

There were a statistically significant differences of stress levels based on whether respondents reported:

  • “My neighborhood has several free or low-cost recreation facilities, such as parks, walking trails, bike paths, recreation centers, playgrounds, public swimming pools, etc.” [chi-square (df=6, n=71,950) =988.84; p<0.001]
  • “There are facilities to bicycle in or near my neighborhood, such as special lanes, separate paths or trails, shared use paths for cycles and pedestrians” [chi-square (df=6, n=71,950) =623.01; p<0.001]

Both tests yielded small effect sizes as measured by Cramer’s V (0.04 and 0.03, respectively). This suggests that although the differences were statistically significant, the effects of safe and accessible outdoor activity on stress levels were minimal.