How do parents' subjective perceptions about the built and social environments relate to objective indicators of the built environment? Investigating direct associations between major context factors of children's mobility

Abstract

Built and social environments and parents' perceptions of these environments are major influences of children's practices. Thus, many studies consider these influences in understanding independent mobility, physical activity or mode choice. Given this importance, it is surprising that only few studies touch upon direct interconnections between built environments and parental perceptions, independent from children's practices. The present study aims to provide insights on how objectively measured built environments are associated with parental perceptions of built and social environments, with a particular focus on the role of residential environments. Furthermore, as conceptual models of children's mobility understand parental perceptions mainly as mediators of built environments, the study considers factors unrelated to built environments to assess potential limits to planning intervention. Overall, we find rather weak associations between built environments and parental perceptions. While ANOVA results show that parental perceptions of built and social environments partly vary with the residential environment families live in, variables related to school routes exhibit stronger associations than variables representing residential environments in regression analyses. Foreign citizenship emerged as a surprisingly influential factor and should be considered in future research and practice. • Built environments play a limited role in shaping parental perceptions. • School routes matter more to parental perceptions than residential environments. • The impact of migration background on parental perception is surprisingly high.

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