In recent decades, there has been a decline in active school transportation (AST). Parents play an important role as the key decision-makers of children's AST, and there is a need of more knowledge about the decision-making process and parents' beliefs towards AST. The overall aim of this study was to explore parents' attitudes and beliefs towards AST in the northern part of Sweden. Twenty parents participated in semi-structured interviews, which was based on the theory of planned behaviour. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interviews. The analysis yielded one main theme, "Parenting and active school transportation-making route choices in a changed landscape" and four subthemes, "Knowing that it is beneficial while struggling with daily life", "Considering barriers and solutions to enable AST", "Parenting is challenging and about balancing", and "Reflecting and contemplating about what we and others do". Winter conditions affect parents' decisions, and this needs to be considered when facilitating AST in these regions. Overall better health, increased physical activity, time spent outdoors, and free play were revealed as positive outcomes of AST. Decisions were also influenced by social norms and how the idea of parenting has changed through generations. The findings of this study are likely to be important when promoting AST.
There is a need for more knowledge about positive health determinants in the school setting. The overall aim of this study was to analyse if positive self-reported health is associated with experiences of school among high-school students. Data originated from the health dialogue questionnaire answered by students in grade 1 of high school. A total of 5035 students participated from the academic years 2013 to 2016. Logistic regression with positive odds ratio (POR) was used to analyse associations between positive self-reported health and school experiences. There was an association between positive self-reported health and school experiences among students. Positive mental health was the strongest predictor for positive school experiences. To frequently participate in Physical Education, have a positive body image and satisfactory sleep nearly doubled the students' odds for positive school experiences. The results also revealed gender differences; boys more often reported positive experiences of school and positive health than girls. Positive self-reported health is associated with positive experiences of school, particularly mental health. Moreover, these findings have significant implications for how students experience school and demonstrate the importance of including health-promoting interventions in systemic school improvement, meeting both girls' and boys' needs.
Children generally do not meet the recommendation of 60 min of daily physical activity (PA); therefore, active school transportation (AST) is an opportunity to increase PA. To promote AST, the involvement of parents seems essential. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the aim was to develop and validate the PILCAST questionnaire to understand parents’ intentions to let their child cycle or walk to school. Cross-sectional sampling was performed, where 1024 responses were collected from parents. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated acceptable fit indices for the factorial structure according to the TPB, comprising 32 items grouped in 11 latent constructs. All constructs showed satisfying reliability. The regression analysis showed that the TPB explained 55.3% of parents’ intentions to let the child cycle to school and 20.6% regarding walking, increasing by a further 18.3% and 16.6%, respectively, when past behavior was added. The most influential factors regarding cycling were facilitating perceived behavioral control, positive attitudes, subjective and descriptive norms, and for walking, subjective and descriptive norms. The PILCAST questionnaire contributes to a better understanding of the psychological antecedents involving parents’ decisions to let their child cycle or walk to school, and may therefore provide guidance when designing, implementing and evaluating interventions aiming to promote AST.
Summary Insufficient physical activity among children is a critical issue and health promoting initiatives are required to reverse this trend. In response to the current situation, a school-based intervention aiming to increase physical activity with the aid of active school transportation (AST) was implemented in one municipality in northern Sweden. By adopting the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior, we aimed to analyse beliefs among parents whose children were or were not involved in the AST intervention. All municipality schools were included. There were 1024 responses from parents, comprising 610 who responded either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to participating in the intervention. An adjusted linear regression analysis showed that children’s intervention participation was significantly associated with more positive beliefs towards AST among parents. These results indicates that it is possible to influence beliefs that are important in the parental decision-making process by the use of an AST intervention. Therefore, to make children’s active transport to school the more favorable choice for parents, it seems to be worthwhile to not only give children the opportunity to participate but also to involve parents and address their beliefs when designing interventions.
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