Abstract
This article aims to compare the prevalence of active transportation among children and adolescents from 49 countries at different levels of development. The data was extracted from the Report Cards on Physical Activity for Children and Youth from the 49 countries that participated in the Global Matrix 3.0 initiative. Descriptive statistics and a latent profile analysis with active transportation, Human Development Index and Gini index as latent variables were conducted. The global average grade was a “C”, indicating that countries are succeeding with about half of children and youth (47–53%). There is wide variability in the prevalence and in the definition of active transportation globally. Three different profiles of countries were identified based on active transportation grades, Human Development Index (HDI) and income inequalities. The first profile grouped very high HDI countries with low prevalence of active transport and low inequalities. The second profile grouped low and middle HDI countries with high prevalence of active transportation and higher inequalities. And the third profile was characterized by the relatively high prevalence of active transportation and more variability in the socioeconomic variables. Promising policies from countries under each profile were identified. A unified definition of active transportation and contextualized methods for its assessment are needed to advance in surveillance and practice.
Highlights
The world is experiencing a crisis of physical inactivity with almost 80% of adolescents not achieving the recommended 60 min of daily moderate to vigorous physical activity for health [1].In this context, transportation, as a daily necessity to move from one place to another, represents a promising domain to promote the accumulation of physical activity in children and adolescents in a convenient and habitual manner [2]
The aims of this study were to compare the prevalence of active transportation among children and adolescents from 49 countries participating in the Global Matrix 3.0, to identify a set of profiles to group the countries according to their prevalence of active transport and sociodemographic variables, and to discuss policies and practices implemented across different countries to increase active transportation
Despite the clear gradient in average grades according to Human Development Index (HDI) that has been discussed in previous publications [141,142,143], our results show variability within HDI groups and the latent profile analysis (LPA) allowed us to examine the clustering of this sample of countries according to three variables of interest
Summary
The world is experiencing a crisis of physical inactivity with almost 80% of adolescents not achieving the recommended 60 min of daily moderate to vigorous physical activity for health [1] In this context, transportation, as a daily necessity to move from one place to another, represents a promising domain to promote the accumulation of physical activity in children and adolescents in a convenient and habitual manner [2]. Active transportation comprises non-motorized travel modes like walking, cycling or riding a scooter, among others [4] The use of these active modes leads to health benefits such as greater levels of cardiorespiratory fitness [3,5] and better cardiometabolic health indicators [6]. Public Health 2020, 17, 5997; doi:10.3390/ijerph17165997 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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