Children's Active School Travel: Examining the Combined Perceived and Objective Built-Environment Factors from Space Syntax.

Ayse Ozbil,Demet Yesiltepe,Greg Rybarczyk,Gorsev Argin

doi:10.3390/ijerph18010286

Abstract

Increasing active school travel (AST) among children may provide the required level of daily physical activity and reduce the prevalence of obesity. Despite efforts to promote this mode, recent evidence shows that AST rates continue to decrease in suburban and urban areas alike. The aim of this research study, therefore, is to facilitate our understanding of how objective and perceived factors near the home influence children’s AST in an understudied city, İstanbul, Turkey. Using data from a cross-sectional sample of students aged 12–14 from 20 elementary schools (n = 1802) and consenting parents (n = 843), we applied a nominal logistic regression model to highlight important predictors of AST. The findings showed that street network connectivity (as measured by two novel space syntax measures, metric reach and directional reach) was the main deciding factor for active commuting to school, while parents’ perceptions of condition of sidewalks and shade-casting street trees were moderately significant factors associated with AST. Overall, this study demonstrated the significance of spatial structure of street network around the homes in the potential for encouraging AST, and more importantly, the need to consider objective and perceived environmental attributes when strategizing means to increase this mode choice and reduce ill-health among children.

Highlights

Physical inactivity among children is becoming increasingly prevalent in many developing countries, including Turkey, which has faced rapid economic and social development, urbanization, and industrialization [1]
The World Health Organization [2] recommends that children should undertake at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day
Our findings suggest that increasing street network density and reducing direction changes within a

Summary

Introduction

Physical inactivity among children is becoming increasingly prevalent in many developing countries, including Turkey, which has faced rapid economic and social development, urbanization, and industrialization [1]. In Turkey, 56.2% of 12–14-year-olds do not meet the recommendation [3]. This has key implications for children’s health conditions, including mental wellbeing [4], obesity [5], diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and asthma [6,7]. Promoting AST has shown to positively impact children’s physical health (i.e., reduced BMI and increased mental well-being among children actively commuting to school [9,10,11]). In recent years many medium- and high-income countries throughout Europe and globally have seen a decline in the number of children walking to school [12,13]

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Conclusion