Associations among Individual, Social, and Environmental Barriers and Children's Walking or Cycling to School

In: American journal of health promotion, Volume 22, Issue 2, p. 107-113

Abstract

Purpose. To examine associations among individual, social, and environmental barriers and children's walking or cycling to school. Design. Exploratory cross-sectional study. Setting. All eight capital cities in Australia. Subjects. Parents (N = 720) of school-aged children (4–13 years; 27% response rate; 49% parents of boys). Measures. Multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for parental reporting of barriers to their children's walking or cycling to school, based on a computer-assisted telephone interview. Results. Forty-one percent of children walked or cycled to school at least once per week. Multivariable analyses found inverse associations with individual ("child prefers to be driven" [OR = 0.4, 95% CI = 0.3–0.6], "no time in the mornings" [OR = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.3–0.8]); social ("worry child will take risks" [OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.3–0.9], "no other children to walk with" [OR = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.4–0.99], "no adults to walk with" [OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.4–0.9]); and environmental barriers ("too far to walk" [OR = 0.1, 95% CI = 0.0–0.1], "no direct route" [OR = 0.4, 95% CI = 0.2–0.7]) and positive associations with "concern child may be injured in a road accident" (OR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.1–3.1) and active commuting. Conclusion. Working with parents, schools, and local authorities to improve pedestrian skills and environments may help to overcome barriers.