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The influence of the physical environment and sociodemographic characteristics on children's mode of travel to and from school

Sociodemographic and physical environment factors influence children's active travel between home and school

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the understanding of factors that influence the likelihood that children will engage in any physical activity in traveling to and from school. The context for the study was framed by the researchers by stating, at the time of the study, that “Fewer than half of all children in Canada and the United States are active enough to experience the well-known benefits of physical activity” and further that getting to and from school provides a significant opportunity to increase such physical activity by walking or riding a bicycle.

Larsen and colleagues investigated relationships between children’s mode of travel to and from school and various social and physical environment factors among 11- to 13-year-old students from a diversity of schools in London, Ontario, Canada. As part of this study, over 600 students, living within 1 mile of their school, completed a survey about their travel behavior and neighborhood. In addition, researchers used a Geographic Information System to identify participants’ home and school neighborhoods and used various databases to calculate specific sociodemographic and physical environment characteristics (e.g., presence of street trees, intersection density, and dwelling density).

In analyzing the study data, Larsen and colleagues found that 62% of students actively traveled from home to school, while 72% of students actively traveled from school to home. Researchers found that students were more likely to actively travel to or from school if they lived closer to school, were male, their neighborhood had a higher land use mix, and there were more street trees than in other neighborhoods. For example, boys were about 1.5 times more likely to actively travel to/from school than girls.

Additional research is needed to understand why some of these factors influence children’s travel behavior. This study improves our understanding of the social and physical factors influencing children’s travel to and from school and highlights the importance of school location. It has implications for school and community planners since site selection and related factors will contribute to the likelihood of students getting physical exercise on their way to and from school.

Citation

Larsen, K., Gilliland, J., Hess, P., Tucker, P., Irwin, J., He, M. Z., (2009). The influence of the physical environment and sociodemographic characteristics on children's mode of travel to and from school. American Journal of Public Health, 99(3), 520-526.

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.135319

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