a b s t r a c tThe study reports the degree of children's independent mobility (CIM) in Finland for over two decades, from the beginning of the 1990s up to 2011. The first part of the research examined the differences of CIM in five different settlements in 2011: inner city, suburban, large town, small town, and rural village. A cross-sectional survey was used on a total of 821 7-to 15-year-old children in various settlements in different parts of Finland. Independent mobility was operationalized both as mobility licenses, meaning parental permits to perform certain activities independently, and as actual mobility, the proportion of active and independent school travel and independent weekend activities. In the second part of the study, we used the same measures to compare the independent mobility of Finnish children in the 1990s and 2010s. The second sample consisted of a total of 306 8-to 10-year-old children and their parents who participated in the CIM study in 1993-94 or in 2011. The major finding of the study was that in Finland children's independent mobility had decreased significantly during a span of 20 years, even more noticeably in the small town and rural village settings than in the inner city settlements. Finnish children, nevertheless, still enjoy a very high degree of independent mobility when compared with the children from the 16 countries involved in the large international comparative study for which the current research was conducted. In the discussion, we give some possible factors that can provide some understanding of and explanation to these trends.

BackgroundThe built environment health promotion has attracted notable attention across a wide spectrum of health-related research over the past decade. However, the results about the contextual effects on health and PA are highly heterogeneous. The discrepancies between the results can potentially be partly explained by the diverse use of different spatial units of analysis in assessing individuals’ exposure to various environment characteristics. This study investigated whether different residential and activity space units of analysis yield distinct results regarding the association between the built environment and health. In addition, this study examines the challenges and opportunities of the different spatial units of analysis for environmental health-related research.MethodsTwo common residential units of analysis and two novel activity space models were used to examine older adults’ wellbeing in relation to the built environment features in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. An administrative unit, 500 m residential buffer, home range model and individualized residential exposure model were used to assess the associations between the built environment and wellbeing of respondent’s (n = 844).ResultsAll four different spatial units of analysis yield distinct results regarding the associations between the built environment characteristics and wellbeing. A positive association between green space and health was found only when exposure was assessed with individualized residential exposure model. Walkability index and the length of pedestrian and bicycle roads were found to positively correlate with perceived wellbeing measures only with a home range model. Additionally, all units of analysis differed from each other in terms of size, shape, and how they capture different contextual measures.ConclusionsThe results show that different spatial units of analysis result in considerably different measurements of built environment. In turn, the differences derived from the use of different spatial units seem to considerably affect the associations between environment characteristics and wellbeing measures. Although it is not easy to argue about the correctness of these measurements, what is evident is that they can reveal different wellbeing outcomes. While some methods are especially usable to determine the availability of environmental opportunities that promote active travel and the related health outcomes, others can provide us with insight into the mechanisms how the actual exposure to green structure can enhance wellbeing.

Increasingly, children are residing in urban environments, yet little is known about the urban affordances for children. A place-based approach was employed to map the urban experiences of over 1300 children residing in Helsinki (Finland) and in Tokyo (Japan) in terms of meaningful places (affordances), travel mode and accompaniment to these places. Shared affordances were considered behavior settings, and audited on-site by trained experts for their main function, land use, openness, and communality. Significant differences were found between countries for all affordance categories. Although differences in behavior settings were observed between countries, a number of patterns emerged: outdoor settings and those with shared communality were the most prevalent behavior settings, traffic settings were predominantly evaluated negatively and commercial and indoor settings most positively. Findings suggest that although the context is important, independent mobility and the possibility to actualize environmental affordances seem to be fundamental in both contexts as the key criteria for environmental child-friendliness.

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