Influence of the social environment on children's school travel

Chemical and non-chemical stressors affecting childhood obesity: a systematic scoping review

“…However, these types of studies lack definite conclusions regarding cause and effect. 46,117,140,[181][182][183][184] On the other hand, while longitudinal studies follow children for a period of time, these types of studies may be limited by the use of retrospective data, parent-based reporting, limited measurements of other covariates, imperfect or missing measurements of confounders, gaps in data reporting, or selection bias. 165,185,186 Crosscomparison studies may prove difficult due to varying study designs and ages of the children.…”

School travel behaviour in the Netherlands and Flanders

“…The distance analysis in the present paper is then relevant for modal choice; factors influencing distance will affect indirectly modal choice. More reported variables regard, among others, urban form (McMillan, 2007;Mitra et al, 2010), (perceived) safety or security of the route to school (DiGuiseppi et al, 1998;McMillan, 2007;McDonald et al, 2010), transportation options of the household (DiGuiseppi et al, 1998;Black et al, 2001;He, 2011), ethnicity (He, 2011), age of the child (McDonald, 2007), and gender of the child. Results on gender are ambiguous: studies in the US find that boys are more inclined to use active modes than girls (McMillan et al, 2006;He, 2011) while in Japan a higher car dependence is observed for boys (Susilo and Waygood, 2012).…”

Beyond Distance: Children’s School Travel Mode Choice

“…However, private automobiles remain the predominant school travel mode (45.3 % mode share) followed by school buses (39.4 %), while walking or bicycling together account for only 12.7 % of the total school transportation mode share in the USA as of 2009 [1]. In addition to personal and social factors such as parents' education, income and attitudes, children's age, race, gender and attitudes, and peer influence [2,3], studies have found many built environmental factors associated with school travel behaviors [4][5][6]. Environmental approaches to promote walking to/from school have become increasingly popular with the recognition that a safe environment is a prerequisite to any promotional efforts.…”

“…By controlling the most influential factor (distance), this paired comparison method increases the statistical power to detect other significant and more easily modifiable correlates. The main hypotheses of this study are that despite the same built environment, parents who walk their child to school will have significantly (1) more positive perceptions of walkability, (2) less safety concerns about walking to/from school, and (3) more positive attitudes and greater preferences toward walking and physical activity.…”