Research article
Neighborhood, Route, and School Environments and Children's Active Commuting

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.10.040Get rights and content

Background

Walking and cycling to school represent an opportunity for children to achieve regular physical activity. These behaviors may be influenced by characteristics of the environment around homes and schools, yet few studies have quantified the potential associations between these two sets of factors.

Purpose

This study aims to assess whether objectively measured characteristics of the neighborhood, route, and school environments are associated with active commuting to school among children, and it explores whether distance acts as a moderator in this association.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted of 2012 children (899 boys and 1113 girls) aged 9–10 years attending 92 schools in the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom. Questionnaires were completed by children and parents during Summer 2007. Attributes around the home and children's route to school were assessed using a GIS. School environments were assessed using a newly developed school audit and via questionnaires completed by head teachers. Data were analyzed in 2008.

Results

Almost half of the children usually walked or cycled to school. Children who lived in a more deprived area and whose route to school was direct were less likely to walk or cycle to school, whereas those who had a higher density of roads in their neighborhood were more likely to walk. Further, children whose routes had a high density of streetlights were less likely to cycle to school. Distance did not moderate the observed associations.

Conclusions

Objectively measured neighborhood and route factors are associated with walking and cycling to school. However, distance did not moderate the associations found here. Creating safe environments by improving urban design may influence children's commuting behavior. Intervention studies are needed to confirm the findings from this observational cross-sectional study.

Introduction

Physical activity provides a number of important benefits for children, including improved physical1 and mental health.2 Walking and cycling to school (or “active commuting”) is one way in which children can integrate physical activity into their everyday lives and has previously been identified as a possible target for increasing physical activity levels in children.3 Research suggests that children and adolescents who actively commute to school tend to be more active than those who do not,4 and this may contribute substantially to children's overall physical activity.5

According to the socio-ecologic model of health behavior,6 a variety of contextual influences are likely to be important in determining health behavior. A recent review7 highlighted that in addition to individual factors such as age and gender, a broad range of environmental factors may influence children's active commuting. Several authors, including Moudon and Lee,8 have suggested that three environmental components should be considered as possible influences on active commuting: the neighborhood around the home, the route between home and school, and the environment of the school itself.

Studies that have examined one or more of these components have used either self-reported perceptions of the environment from participants or objective measures generated using a GIS or street audits. Current research using objective methods suggests that the presence of pavements and mixed land use around the school is associated with a higher prevalence of walking or cycling to school,9, 10 whereas having to cross a busy road en route to school or having fewer route options has been negatively associated with children's active commuting.11

There are four main limitations of the studies published to date. Distance is an important determinant of travel behavior7 and may moderate the association between environmental factors and active commuting,12 yet there is a lack of studies examining this in the context of travel to school. Second, many studies fail to separate walking and cycling. As the characteristics of environments encouraging walking among children may be very different from those supporting cycling, failure to consider the behaviors separately may mean that study outcomes and environmental exposures are not appropriately matched.13 Third, the environmental measures commonly studied are often based on those developed to assess the supportiveness of the environment for walking among adults. It is not understood how these factors are associated with cycling behavior or if associations differ in children. Finally, the majority of studies to date have been conducted in urban areas in the U.S. and Australia, which are both countries with typical urban layouts that are not commonly found in regions such as Europe. Hence, there is a need to examine how the environment might be associated with children's active commuting in different environmental settings.

To address these limitations, this study quantifies a range of associations between objectively measured environmental characteristics and walking and cycling to school in a large sample of British schoolchildren selected from urban and rural neighborhoods. This study also explored the hypothesis that the associations between environmental factors and children's active commuting behaviors may be moderated by the distance traveled to school.

Section snippets

Study Design and Setting

Children included in this analysis participated in the SPEEDY study (Sport, Physical Activity and Eating Behaviour: Environmental Determinants in Young People). The methods of recruitment and sampling and the overall sample representativeness of the study have been described in detail elsewhere.14 Briefly, children were sampled through schools in the county of Norfolk, in the East of England. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the University of East Anglia local research ethics

Sample Characteristics

From the sample of 2064 children who participated in the SPEEDY study, 52 participants (2.5%) were excluded; of these, 41 failed to provide an address that could be located, and 11 gave no information on travel mode to school. No significant differences were noted between participants excluded from analysis and those in the main sample.

The sample contained more girls than boys (55.3% vs 44.7%); the mean age (±SD) was 10.25 (±0.3) years. Forty percent of children reported usually walking to

Discussion

This is one of the first studies to examine the association between objectively measured characteristics of neighborhoods, routes, and schools and children's reported active commuting in the United Kingdom (UK) and to consider the moderating effects of distance required to travel to school. In this study, children who lived in highly connected, more-deprived neighborhoods with routes to school that were short, direct, and included a busy road were less likely to walk or cycle to school. These

Conclusion

A combination of objectively measured neighborhood and route characteristics was associated with children's active commuting behavior. The study found no evidence that these associations varied according to the distance to school, or that differences in the school environment were important. Creating neighborhoods that provide safe and quiet routes to school may increase participation in active commuting.

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