Citation

Barati M, Fallah Zavareh M, Mamdoohi AR. Amirkabir J. Civil Eng. 2021; 53(10): e6821.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Amirkabir University of Technology)

DOI

10.22060/ceej.2020.18293.6821

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Increasing active school trips is a strategy for children's health. Although route features may associate with higher amounts of walking school trips, the majority of previous studies have focused on buffer-level characteristics of the built environment. Moreover, the role of children's interests has not been widely examined in previous studies. The present study investigates the associations between the route-level features of the built environment, socio-economic, and cognitive characteristics on children's walk to school. A total of 340 questionnaires were distributed among 7-12 year-old pupils across three primary schools in a neighbourhood in Tehran. For each route to school the environmental features were collected per Pedestrians First (PF) instrument, a tool for measuring walkability.

RESULTS reveal that number of motorcycles, and distance from home to school are negatively, and non-residential land use and proportion of favourable sidewalks are positively related to children's walk to school. Parental worry about children's walking to school is negatively associated with children's walk to school. It is also found that children's interest in walking is not significant.

RESULTS have important ramifications for planning the walk to school programs in the neighbourhood level. Furthermore, findings underscored the provision of multi-facet long-term policies such as land use changes and school location patterns across the neighbourhood, when preparing master and land use plans, to enhance walking school travels for health reasons.

Keywords: SR2S; Walkability Built environment School trips Active transport Students

Language: fa