2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play: Process and Methodology
Date
Authors
de Lannoy, L
Lee, EY
Ryu, S
Lopes, O
S Cheruvathur, J
Thankarajah, A
Adjei Boadi, D
de Barros, I
Duncan, S
James, ME
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMC
Abstract
Background: The 2015 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play highlighted the benefits of active outdoor play for child health and development and had significant impact on public policy, law, philanthropy, and research in Canada and internationally. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, we led an update to the Position Statement that is global in scope and inclusive of all human age groups. The goal of this manuscript is to outline the process and methodology involved in developing the 2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play. Methods: The process involved several key steps: (1) establishing an international leadership group; (2) forming an international steering committee; (3) conducting an environmental scan of historical key events in active outdoor play; (4) using text-mining and linked network analyses to identify core research themes and map relationships among outdoor play organizations; (5) developing a conceptual framework through a consensus-building process; and, (6) using this conceptual framework to guide the completion of a series of reviews used to inform the 2025 Position Statement. Results: The environmental scan identified 136 key events that provided historical context for the evolution of active outdoor play. Text-mining and linked network analyses revealed 10 core research themes and mapped relationships among key organizations and individuals in the field. Informed by these themes and concepts, a draft conceptual framework was developed and circulated to the > 130-person steering committee for review and consensus. The final version of the conceptual framework encompassed 9 key themes, which guided the focus of 18 reviews used to inform the scope and content of the 2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play. Conclusions: A three-year-long process involving an international leadership group and >130 person steering committee led to the development of an environmental scan, text-mining and linked network analysis, and a conceptual framework including 9 key themes with bidirectional relationships with active outdoor play that guided the development of 18 reviews. Collectively, this work served to inform the updated Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play, which aims to encourage humans of all ages to play, learn, teach, grow, and thrive outdoors and serve as caring stewards of the land, water, air, plants, animals, and each other.Description
Keywords
Active outdoor play, Community connections, Education and learning, Health and wellbeing, Human rights and policy, Movement behaviors, Nature and environment, One health, Social capital, 4206 Public Health, 42 Health Sciences, 11 Medical and Health Sciences, 13 Education, Public Health, 3210 Nutrition and dietetics, 4202 Epidemiology, 4207 Sports science and exercise
Source
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, ISSN: 1479-5868 (Print); 1479-5868 (Online), BMC, 22(1), 118-. doi: 10.1186/s12966-025-01806-8
Publisher's version
Rights statement
Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.