Abstract

This study investigates the relation between swimming infrastructure and participation in Flanders. First, we investigate whether the availability of swimming facilities is related to higher swimming participation and/or frequency. Second, the focus is on the relationship with quality aspects of swimming pools. A number of datasets are combined, namely two large-scale sports participation surveys (children N = 2,920; adults N =3,781), a sports infrastructure database, and a survey among swimming pools (N =125). The results indicate that the presence of a swimming pool in the municipality is not related to swimming participation (children and adults) and swimming frequency (adults), while also no effect is found for price reductions and quality aspects (i.e. age of the infrastructure, cafeteria). The results suggest that the swimming infrastructure in Flanders seems to be sufficient and that alternative strategies for a (sole) focus on the entrance fee and building (more) swimming pools needs to be addressed to increase swimming participation. The results also indicate that women, elderly, and citizens that had a longer education, have a lower probability to swim and swim less frequently and that further focussing on removing the barriers that they face would be a viable strategy to increase overall swimming participation.

摘要

本研究调查了游泳基础设施与法兰德斯参与度之间的关系。首先，我们调查游泳设施的可用性是否与更高的游泳参与和/或频率有关。其次，重点是与游泳池质量方面的关系。多个数据集相结合，即两个大型体育参与调查（儿童N  = 2,920；成人N  = 3,781）、一个体育基础设施数据库和一个游泳池调查（N =125)。结果表明，该市游泳池的存在与游泳参与（儿童和成人）和游泳频率（成人）无关，同时也没有发现降价和质量方面的影响（即基础设施的年龄，自助餐厅）。结果表明，法兰德斯的游泳基础设施似乎已经足够，需要解决（唯一）关注入场费和建造（更多）游泳池的替代策略，以增加游泳参与度。结果还表明，受教育时间较长的女性、老年人和公民游泳和游泳频率较低的可能性较低，进一步关注消除他们面临的障碍将是增加整体游泳参与度的可行策略。