One should really be more worried about too little physical activity than injuries while walking or cycling to school. Parents’ perception of risk concerning active school transportation.

Abstract

IntroductionActive school transportation (AST) can be a powerful strategy to promote physical activity and improve children's health. Parents' perceptions of traffic risks are an important factor in their decision concerning their child's transport mode to school and addressing discordances between the percieved risks and actual incidents might contribute to promote children's AST. This study adopted a game originally designed for the context of information security to resonate with the context of Swedish AST and the aim of the study was to describe parent's experience of playing the game. MethodsA qualitative approach was chosen and data was collected using focus groups with 16 parents for totally 29 children aged 7–12. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. ResultsThe results formed one main theme “Playing promotes parents' awareness and consideration of active school transportation” and three subthemes; “Fast, fun, and functional; Experiences from playing the game” showing that the parents perceived the game to be fun, easy, and time efficient to play. “Then and now. Own childhood experience vs being a parent” showing that parents' perception of risk can sometimes be barriers to their children's opportunity to use AST. “Personal perceptions vs statistical risk” showing that playing the game addressed the discordance between the parents' perceived risks and actual incidents, as well as promoted parents' awareness and consideration of AST. ConclusionsIncluding an intervention component such as a game for parents and using schools as the arena for implementing projects promoting AST to improve children's physical activity levels, might be a fruitful avenue.