Abstract
BackgroundIncreasing cycling for transport can contribute to improve public health among adults. Micro-environmental factors (i.e. small-scaled street-setting features) may play an important role in affecting the street’s appeal to cycle for transport. Understanding about the interplay between individuals and their physical environment is important to establish tailored environmental interventions. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine whether specific subgroups exist based on similarities in micro-environmental preferences to cycle for transport.MethodsResponses of 1950 middle-aged adults (45–65 years) on a series of choice tasks depicting potential cycling routes with manipulated photographs yielded three subgroups with different micro-environmental preferences using latent class analysis.ResultsAlthough latent class analysis revealed three different subgroups in the middle-aged adult population based on their environmental preferences, results indicated that cycle path type (i.e. a good separated cycle path) is the most important environmental factor for all participants and certainly for individuals who did not cycle for transport. Furthermore, only negligible differences were found between the importances of the other micro-environmental factors (i.e. traffic density, evenness of the cycle path, maintenance, vegetation and speed limits) regarding the two at risk subgroups and that providing a speed bump obviously has the least impact on the street’s appeal to cycle for transport.ConclusionsResults from the current study indicate that only negligible differences were found between the three subgroups. Therefore, it might be suggested that tailored environmental interventions are not required in this research context.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3471-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Increasing cycling for transport can contribute to improve public health among adults
This study showed that in streets where it is impossible to provide a well-separated cycle path, targeting micro-environmental factors related to safety may be more effective in promoting bicycle transport than micro-environmental factors related to comfort or aesthetics
Descriptive statistics of the total sample The total sample consisted of 1950 participants aged between 45 and 65 years, 56.8 % were women, 64.6 % had undertaken tertiary education and 21.7 % did not cycle for transport in a usual week
Summary
Increasing cycling for transport can contribute to improve public health among adults. Cross-sectional evidence has shown that active transport, especially cycling for transport, could be an important contributor to general public health by increasing physical activity (PA) levels among adults, reducing the risk of allcause mortality and helping to maintain a healthy body weight [1, 2]. Current Belgian statistics showed that, for adults, only 25 and 14 % of all trips shorter than 3 and 5 km respectively are undertaken using active transport (i.e. walking or cycling) [13]. There is a need for interventions to promote cycling for transport in adults. In this regard, it is important to verify the key determinants of cycling for transport in adults
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