Active commuting to school in Portuguese adolescents: Using PALMS to detect trips

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. 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. 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) minutes 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). 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.

The Associations of Active Travel to School with Physical Activity and Screen Time Among Adolescents: Do Individual and Parental Characteristics Matter?

“…The current study indicates that just below half of the participants (47.3%) engaged in ATS from home to school, which corroborates other studies on Chinese [21,22] and North American samples [34,35]. Regardless, in contrast with studies of European countries [36,37], the adolescents in our study showed reduced ATS performance. Inconsistencies in the ATS levels between our study other research are primarily due to different measures used.…”

Where are children and adults physically active and sedentary? – a rapid review of location-based studies

“…Many focussed exclusively on MVPA within the active transportation environment, specifically the commute toand-from school. 47,55,59,60 Collins et al 47 in their study of youth from England found that active commuting contributed to 35% of daily MVPA. Commuting distance appears to be a significant predictor of active transportation, with active commuters often living closer to the destination than passive commuters.…”

“…MVPA was the most studied behaviour. There are a total of 22 studies in children, 17 in youth [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] and 20 in adults. 28, [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79] Sample sizes ranged from 12 to 1053; 39% were small (N ≤ 100).…”

“…Commuting distance appears to be a significant predictor of active transportation, with active commuters often living closer to the destination than passive commuters. 47,55,60 Roads and sidewalks are major sources of youth MVPA, 45,51,53 largely owing to their use for active transit. 49,56 A Canadian study found that urban youth accumulated the majority (56% for girls, 58% for boys) of their daily MVPA while commuting (largely to-and-from school); this was greater than for suburban and rural students.…”

Examen rapide des études spatialisées traitant des lieux d’activité physique et de sédentarité des enfants et des adultes

“…Les localisations le plus souvent mention nées à propos des adolescents étaient le domicile, l'école, les installations de loisirs, le transport actif et les espaces verts. Bon nombre d'adolescents pratiquaient exclu sivement une APMV en lien avec le trans port actif, pour aller à l'école et en revenir 47,55,59,60 80 . Chez les enfants et les adolescents, les don nées probantes vont dans le sens d'une corrélation positive entre l'accès à des installations de loisirs, des terrains de jeux et des parcs, les mesures de l'accessibilité piétonnière (en particulier les trottoirs) et l'AP 80,81 .…”