Abstract
In this Briefing we review the public health and wellbeing benefits associated with drinking fountain provision. These include supporting the use of green spaces, encouraging physical activity, and providing a free, healthier substitute to sugar-sweetened beverages that can help prevent dental decay and obesity.
We identified five studies relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) and published during 2014-2018 that showed that no more than one in five parks and children’s playgrounds had any drinking fountains. An intervention in Taranaki involving a survey and media release is detailed, with this doubling fountain numbers for the three Taranaki councils collectively since 2017 (2.1-fold increase from 25 to 52 fountains).
Our field survey also showed that 50% of children’s playgrounds in Taranaki now have drinking fountains – over double the prevalence found in the older studies in other parts of the country. Citizens, councils and local organisations (eg, Rotary) can all contribute to increasing the availability of drinking fountains in public places around NZ. Central Government could promote existing standards for park design, develop and promote a national assessment tool and consider minimal standards being built into the law.