Background: In this study, the safety of 54 public playgrounds in 12 neighborhoods in Aydın (Turkey) city was assessed in terms of 9 important risk factors that may cause injury, and a risk map was created. The simple random sampling method was used to determine the neighborhoods and public playgrounds included in the study. The Playground Safety Survey was prepared to assess safety of playgrounds. ArcMap 10.3 software was used to create the risk map of playgrounds and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 19 software was used for statistical analysis of research data. Among the important risk factors, playgrounds were evaluated as “Very safe” in terms of the fall/equipment height (4.90), dangerous equipment (4.77), protective surfaces (4.26) playground equipment surface material (4.25) factors, “safe” in terms of the head entrapment hazards (3.89), swings (3.67) and clothing entanglement hazards (3.57) factors, and “unsafe” in terms of the dangerous plant material (2.60) and fall (use) zones (1.88) factors. In terms of the safety score, 75.93% of the playgrounds in Aydın (41 playgrounds) were found to be “Safe” (3.75). While rubber tiles or unitary synthetic surface were used under 80.72% (134 playground equipment) of the investigated 166 playground equipment, concrete was used under 4.22% (7 playground equipment). The playgrounds in Ilicabasi and Osman Yozgatli neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status were found to be more unsafe than the playgrounds in Girne and Mimar Sinan neighborhoods with high socioeconomic status.
