Active transportation to school for children and adolescents from Brazil: a systematic review

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the use of active transportation to school (ATS) for Brazilian children and adolescents through a systematic review. This review was carried out from February to March of 2018 by using databases from the area, governmental policies and research and by contacting researchers from this area. The databases used were: LILACS; BIREME; SCIELO; MEDLINE and SCOPUS. The search was performed in articles published from January 2007 to December 2017. The inclusion criteria were: original articles published in journals; articles that measured ATS; articles that evaluated Brazilian children and/or adolescents with ages ranging between 0 and 19 years of age, without specific clinical conditions, without diagnoses of diseases and non-athletes. Overall, 19 articles were selected for this study. Only 8 presented ATS values for gender, with boys and girls using ATS similarly, 4 for each gender. Regarding regions, 11 studies presented data from the Southern regions, 3 studies presented data from the Southeastern region, 3 from the Northeastern region and 2 studies presented data from Brazil as a whole. The Northern and Midwestern regions were not studied in any of the articles. Based on the results, the prevalence of ATS for children and adolescents varies according to the studies and regions in Brazil. Authorities should be encouraged to build monitoring systems for ATS to support planning and evaluation of public policies.

Prevalence and factors associated with active transportation to school for adolescents

“…Regarding gender, we found that 21.5% of ATS is used by girls. Other studies [1][2][3][4] also found a higher prevalence of active transportation among girls, but they are not unanimous, so these results should be interpreted with caution. Girls' PA levels are lower than their peers in the context of leisure 18 , so transportation may be a way to increase girls' PA.…”

“…Conversely, this study found no association between ATS and sociodemographic factors such as parental schooling and socioeconomic status, deemed as important predictors of the different PA contexts (transportation and leisure) 16,20,21 . What motivates these results is still unclear, but a possibility is that higher parental schooling and socioeconomic status encounter different barriers to ATS, such as schedules or perception of safety [1][2][3] , regardless of the support for PA practice in other contexts.…”

“…Adolescents involved in ATS, such as walking and cycling, accumulate more PA and have lower cardiometabolic risks such as overweight and obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome [2][3][4] . Despite the potential health benefits of ATS, studies have reported a drop in the proportion of children and adolescents using it in recent decades [2][3][4] , which may contribute to a global decline in PA levels. Thus, promoting ATS has featured in international initiatives aimed at increasing PA at the population level [3][4][5][6] .…”

“…Such factors may vary according to gender, age, parental schooling, and socioeconomic status 5,6 . As an example, adolescents living near school are more likely to use ATS 1,2 ; however, older adolescents often use passive transportation, such as car and motorcycle, even to nearby destinations 1,2 . These results suggest a need for greater efforts to understand factors that may influence the use of ATS, aiming to increase the use of this mode of commuting to school and other destinations 1,2 .…”

Who are the Brazilian adolescents most actives during commuting to school? a population-based study

“…Besides, researches carried out worldwide have sought to estimate the prevalence of adolescents who go/from schools in an active way 3 . In developing countries, like Brazil, it is estimated that about 34.4 to 73% of adolescents go/come from school by an active way 9 , being that this variation may be influenced by different methods used to assess ACS. Further, data about active transport in Brazil have been based majority in studies carried out in South and Southeast regions, while that data from the Northeast region is still little explored; lastly, information from North and Midwest regions were few reported by the previous literature 9 .…”