Sometimes, a byproduct is just as valuable as the product itself.
Dr Bronwen McNoe discovered this recently when she completed research on shade in council outdoor spaces and ended up developing an app which provides information about 3550 playgrounds across the country.
The University of Otago preventive and social medicine research fellow said the NZ Playground Explorer app had now been released to the public — just in time for the Easter school holidays.
Funded by Lottery Health, the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the University of Otago, the app contains filterable detailed information and photographs of every council-managed playground in New Zealand.
"So, if your child really just loves flying foxes, you can find all the playgrounds in an area where you’re on holiday that have got a flying fox," Dr McNoe said.
The research was initially aimed at shade in outdoor spaces — specifically outdoor spaces where children congregate, she said.
"And the people that are responsible for that are councils, so we need to develop a baseline measure of what shade is there already, so that we can advocate with councils to put more shade in."
But at the end of the research project, she had a lot of useful data just left sitting on her desk.
"I was like, I just can’t keep all this information to myself.
"That’s when I decided I actually needed to put it into some sort of public forum, and that’s how the app came together."
She believed it would be particularly useful for families when they visited other cities, telling them which playgrounds offered good shade, play equipment and amenities such as public toilets and barbecue facilities.
"Now you can get that information and you just happen to get the information about shade while you’re at it."
She hoped the research and the app would encourage councils to think about shade when renovating or creating playgrounds, because skin cancer was a significant issue in New Zealand.
There were about 100,000 cases annually and treatment costs exceeded $400million.
"This largely preventable disease is almost entirely caused by excessive sun exposure, with childhood exposure being a critical risk factor.
"Ensuring shade in areas where children live, learn and play is crucial for their protection from the sun."
Cancer Society spokeswoman Emma Shields said the "revolutionary new app" would help communities across New Zealand be more SunSmart.
"Even though summer is over, the UV can still be strong enough to burn until the end of April."
She hoped to expand the app to include outdoor swimming pools and skateparks.
"I’ve pretty much done playgrounds now, and I’m just working on adding youth parks to the app — so that’s where you’ve got basketball courts, skate areas and pump tracks for the adolescents — and then I’ll work on adding swimming pools as well."
