Active Transport to School and School Neighbourhood Built Environment across Urbanisation Settings in Otago, New Zealand.

Mohammad Lutfur Rahman,Antoni Moore,Tessa Pocock,Sandra Mandic

doi:10.3390/ijerph17239013

Abstract

The school neighbourhood built environment (BE) can facilitate active transport to school (ATS) in adolescents. Most previous studies examining ATS were conducted in large urban centres and focused on BE of home neighbourhoods. This study examined correlations between school-level ATS rates among adolescents, objectively measured school neighbourhood BE features, and adolescents’ perceptions of the school route across different urbanisation settings. Adolescents (n = 1260; 15.2 ± 1.4 years; 43.6% male) were recruited from 23 high schools located in large, medium, and small urban areas, and rural settings in Otago, New Zealand. Adolescents completed an online survey. School neighbourhood BE features were analysed using Geographic Information Systems. School neighbourhood intersection density, residential density and walkability index were higher in large urban areas compared to other urbanisation settings. School-level ATS rates (mean 38.1%; range: 27.8%–43.9%) were negatively correlated with school neighbourhood intersection density (r = −0.58), residential density (r = −0.60), and walkability index (r = −0.64; all p < 0.01). School-level ATS rates were also negatively associated with adolescents’ perceived safety concerns for walking (r = −0.76) and cycling (r = −0.78) to school, high traffic volume (r = −0.82), and presence of dangerous intersections (r = −0.75; all p < 0.01). Future initiatives to encourage ATS should focus on school neighbourhood BE features and minimise adolescents’ traffic safety related concerns.

Highlights

Physical activity (PA) contributes to the physical and mental well-being of adolescents [1,2].PA declines during adolescence [3,4]
Among adolescents living within 4 km from their schools, a significantly higher proportion of adolescents attending rural schools lived within walking distance to school compared to their counterparts in large urban area schools (Table 1)
The proportion of adolescents who lived beyond walking distance but within cycling distance to school ranged from nearly half the adolescents in large urban area schools to less than 10% in rural schools (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Physical activity (PA) contributes to the physical and mental well-being of adolescents [1,2]. PA declines during adolescence [3,4]. 80% of adolescents fail to meet the PA guidelines to accumulate ≥60 min of moderate-to-vigorous PA per day [5]. Decreasing levels of PA among adolescents is a major public health concern [6,7]. (i.e., walking and cycling) is an inexpensive and convenient way to incorporate PA into the everyday lives of adolescents [8,9], and could be a promising strategy to contribute towards adolescents’ daily moderate-to-vigorous PA [10]. The rates of ATS among adolescents vary across countries [4] but are

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion