Different School Environments, Different Parental Attitudes: Knowledge, Beliefs and Risk Perception Regarding Child Pedestrian Road Safety in an Urban Setting

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe and compare parental knowledge, beliefs and perceptions concerning child pedestrian injury risk around primary schools. We surveyed 193 parents from six elementary schools located in urban settings that differed in terms of levels of deprivation and pedestrian injury risk. Parental knowledge of risk for their children was low, but the study found that road traffic/accidents was a major preoccupation. Parents from high-risk schools rated their fear of pedestrian accident higher than parents from high-deprivation schools. However, our measure of risk perception remained relatively high no matter the urban environment. Our results suggest three ways to encourage prevention of child pedestrian injury: 1) develop efficient and original educational tools to increase parents' awareness of the risk for child pedestrians; 2) use the high preoccupation about traffic danger to promote local actions driven by parents; and 3) target “vulnerable” schools as a priority to reduce the inequalities in risk among child pedestrians.