A new report from Trust for Public Land (TPL) titled “Health Funding for Parks and Greenspace” suggests that hospitals have an opportunity to improve community health by investing in parks and greenspaces as critical health infrastructure.
The report is based on a study originally published by Dr. Pooja Sarin Tandon, TPL’s director of health and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Dr. Howard Frumkin, former TPL Land and People Lab director, that examines how parks and greenspaces are currently considered in hospital Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs), along with opportunities for hospitals park agencies and community organizations to collaborate to advance community health and health equity through parks.
“Parks and greenspaces promote physical, mental and social health, but park departments very often struggle to secure sufficient funding,” said Tandon. “Our research finds that though nonprofit hospitals are required to invest in community health, they typically do not consider parks as part of these efforts. This disconnection highlights a promising opportunity for hospitals to begin doing so and make a greater impact toward community health by helping to fund parks and other public outdoor spaces.”
The report explores how hospitals can use community benefit funds to invest in parks and greenspaces. Drawing on examples from across the U.S., the findings show that this approach is feasible and offers hospitals a new way to invest upstream in health, while providing park agencies and health advocates a source of funding.
“Integrating greenspaces into CHNAs and allocating community benefit funds accordingly can shift the healthcare system toward prevention, address structural inequities and produce measurable gains in community health,” Tandon said. “These investments are not only feasible, but evidence-based and proven, and most critically aligned with the health priorities that CHNAs most commonly identify.”
Success stories suggest that hospital investment in parks and greenspace is indeed feasible. Examples include a rooftop farm at Boston Medical Center, support for green community schoolyards by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Walk with a Doc program at Tampa General Hospital, and investment in Houston Parks by Memorial Hermann Health System.
Key findings from the report include:
- Parks are widely recognized as valuable for health. Stakeholders across hospitals, parks and community organizations described parks and greenspaces as critical resources for physical activity, mental health, social connection and community well-being—all public health priorities. This became particularly evident during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Parks are inconsistently addressed in CHNAs. Just over half of CHNAs included any data on parks or greenspaces, and even fewer elevated parks as a community health priority. CHNAs that considered parks typically focused on simple measures of access rather than quality, safety, programming, equity or funding. These omissions limit hospitals’ ability to identify meaningful investment opportunities.
- Limited attention reflects capacity constraints, not opposition. Hospital staff cited time limitations, competing priorities, limited familiarity with park data and funding constraints as key barriers to the idea of parks as a health strategy. Some hospital representatives were not aware that Schedule H allows park investment as a qualifying community benefit activity. This knowledge gap limits hospital action.
- Equity concerns are central. Participants emphasized persistent inequities in park access, quality, safety and programming, shaped by historical and ongoing discrimination. Hospitals that do not account for these inequities risk reinforcing them through their investment decisions.
- Examples of successful collaboration exist. Several cities demonstrated promising cross-sector collaborations such as community gardens, green schoolyards, youth sports complexes and health programs in parks. Even modest improvements such as lighting, benches, tree canopy expansion, trail connections and community programming can produce meaningful health benefits. Most collaborations formed informally rather than through structured processes, which made them difficult to sustain or scale.
For additional takeaways and recommendations, visit https://www.tpl.org/resource/health-dollars-for-parks-and-greenspace.