Safety of Urban Parks in Iran: A Systematic Review

To prevent and reduce injuries when using the facilities of parks, it is necessary to provide safe public ‎‎spaces which have a great impact on various aspects of life quality and social sustainability of the city .Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the safety of parks in the cities of Iran.‎

This is a systematic review conducted through searching international databases of Scopus, ‎PubMed, web of sciences, and local scientific databases including Civilica, SID, and Magiran and finally using ‎Google search engine until August 2020‎ .‎The inclusion criteria included full articles in English and Farsi ‎languages. Key words included "urban park", "playground", "safety" and "Iran". Also, other information obtained ‎from these studies was analyzed using the collected questionnaires.

21 studies met the inclusion criteria, the results of which showed safety indicators were weak to moderate in parks of the metropolitan areas‎. In the other cities, study indicators have been reported to be poor. Children's play ‎equipment also did not fully comply with safety standards. Also, park lighting was not desirable and in terms of ‎physical access, they were not designed to meet the needs of people with disabilities and children of all ages.‎

According to the results of this study, to prevent the occurrence of injuries and damages ‎caused by playing in parks, safety issues should be considered in environmental planning. It is recommended to pay attention to cases related to child safety, play ‎equipment, health and environmental ‎safety.