Demographic, Environmental, Access, and Attitude Factors That Influence Walking to School by Elementary School‐Aged Children

Christine A. Vogt

75 citations0/0 files storedJournal of School Health

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Urban Transport and Accessibility Physical Activity and Health Injury Epidemiology and Prevention

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Walking to school has been identified as an activity that contributes to children's daily exercise requirements. The purpose of this study was to better understand factors that influence walking to school by elementary school-aged children. METHODS: A sample of 1,897 elementary school-aged children (84% response rate; 3rd-5th graders) throughout Michigan completed the Michigan Safe Routes to School Student Survey. The survey measures environmental, access, and attitudinal perceptions toward school routes and transportation methods. RESULTS: Using logistic regression, the results indicate that the odds of walking to school increase the older children are (odds ratio (OR) = 1.80, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.20-2.70) and if students perceive that walking to school saves time (OR = 3.32, 95% CI = 1.44-7.66) or is safe (OR = 2.60, 95% CI = 1.06-6.39). The odds of a student walking to school decrease the farther a student lives from his or her school (OR = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.04-0.37), if his or her parents have a car (OR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.02-0.22), and if the student has access to a school bus (OR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.03-0.18). These factors are significant (p < .05) predictors of walking to school after controlling for other demographic, environmental, access, and attitude factors. CONCLUSIONS: The study results support research indicating that environmental and access factors influence whether elementary school-aged children walk to school. In addition, when children perceive walking to school to be convenient (ie, saves time), their odds of walking to school increase. Future school- and community-based programs promoting walking to school should continue to focus on making walking to school not only safer, but also more convenient.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 75 citations exist upstream.

References

1951Coefficient Alpha and the Internal Structure of Tests 1980Emotional Conservatism: The Basis of Social Behavior?2004Associations Between Overweight and Obesity With Bullying Behaviors in School-Aged Children 2006Personal, Family, Social, and Environmental Correlates of Active Commuting to School 2007Active Transportation to SchoolTrends Among U.S. Schoolchildren, 1969–2001 2006The relative influence of urban form on a child’s travel mode to school 2005Evaluation of the California Safe Routes to School legislation 2006School Trips: Effects of Urban Form and Distance on Travel Mode

Cited by

2011Neighborhood Environment and Physical Activity Among Youth 2011Understanding the determinants of active transportation to school among children: Evidence of environmental injustice from the Quebec longitudinal study of child development 2016From attitude to action: What shapes attitude toward walking to/from school and how does it influence actual behaviors?2013An explanation of the relationship between adults’ work trip mode and children’s school trip mode through the Heckman approach

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.