@article{ref1,
title="Active commuting to school in Portuguese adolescents: using PALMS to detect trips",
journal="Journal of transport and health",
year="2016",
author="Pizarro, Andreia Nogueira and Schipperijn, Jasper and Andersen, Henriette Bondo and Ribeiro, Jose Carlos and Mota, Jorge and Santos, Maria Paula",
volume="3",
number="3",
pages="297-304",
abstract="The declining levels of physical activity (PA) have led to active commuting to school (ACS) being seen as a key strategy to increase PA levels in school-aged children. In Portugal, no data exists on the patterns of this behavior, an essential step for developing evidence-based and effective interventions. The purpose of this study is to explore the travel to school behavior using an objective methodology. <br><br>METHODS: 155 adolescents (mean age 15.9 +/- 1.1 years) wore an accelerometer and a GPS for 7 consecutive days. Home and school addresses were geocoded to identify home-school trips. The web-based tool PALMS was used to combine GPS and accelerometer data, categorize Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) and classify trip mode of home-school trips into: walking, bicycling or vehicle. <br><br>RESULTS: 609 trips were identified as home-school trips. Walking was the most frequent trip mode (68.8%) whereas bicycling was less common (14.4%). Median home-school walking trip length was 0.9 km and 96.7% of the trips were under 2.0 km. Near 80% of the total walking trip time(to or from school) was in MVPA and contributed on average with 12( +/- 5.6) min to daily recommendations. Differences were found whether the trip started at home or at school, walking school-home trips took longer and had more minutes in MVPA than home-school trips. Regression analyses showed increasing distance to be associated with lower odds of ACS in boys (OR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.16-0.63) and girls (OR: 0.10; 95% CI: 0.04-0.25). <br><br>CONCLUSION: Walking to school and back home can contribute with up to 40% of recommended daily MVPA, so increasing this behavior may be of particular relevance to increase PA levels. On the other hand, cycling is underused in home-school trips and strategies to promote the use of bicycle could also be of interest, especially in trips longer than 2.0 km. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.   Keywords: SR2S<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2214-1405",
doi="10.1016/j.jth.2016.02.004",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2016.02.004"
}