Children’s Transport Built Environments: A Mixed Methods Study of Associations between Perceived and Objective Measures and Relationships with Parent Licence for Independent Mobility in Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

Children’s independent mobility is declining internationally. Parents are the gatekeepers of children’s independent mobility. This mixed methods study investigates whether parent perceptions of the neighbourhood environment align with objective measures of the neighbourhood built environment, and how perceived and objective measures relate to parental licence for children’s independent mobility. Parents participating in the Neighbourhood for Active Kids study (n = 940) answered an open-ended question about what would make their neighbourhoods better for their child’s independent mobility, and reported household and child demographics. Objective measures of the neighbourhood built environment were generated using geographic information systems. Content analysis was used to classify and group parent-reported changes required to improve their neigbourhood. Parent-reported needs were then compared with objective neighbourhood built environment measures. Linear mixed modelling examined associations between parental licence for independent mobility and (1) parent neighbourhood perceptions; and (2) objectively assessed neighbourhood built environment features. Parents identified the need for safer traffic environments. No significant differences in parent reported needs were found by objectively assessed characteristics. Differences in odds of reporting needs were observed for a range of socio-demographic characteristics. Parental licence for independent mobility was only associated with a need for safer places to cycle (positive) and objectively assessed cycling infrastructure (negative) in adjusted models. Overall, the study findings indicate the importance of safer traffic environments for children’s independent mobility.

Keeping kids safe for active travel to school: A mixed method examination of school policies and practices and children’s school travel behaviour

“…An inverse relationship between objectively measured cycle lanes and active school travel behaviour appears counter-intuitive at first. However, this finding was somewhat expected based on previous examinations of cycle lane availability and quality in relation to parent neighbourhood environment perspectives in Auckland ( Smith et al, 2019a ). These findings suggest that cycle lanes, compared to cycle paths (i.e., segregated tracks/trails for cyclists and/or pedestrians), in the Auckland context might not be designated for children to safely cycle, scooter or skateboard on.…”

“…Cycle lane: Cycle lane length (CLL; km) derived from the Auckland Transport’s Open GIS Data Website (Auckland Transport, 2019b ) and all road lengths (ARL; km) derived from the 2015 CoreLogic Transport dataset were generated within the defined buffer. The ratio of CLL/ARL was calculated, where a higher ratio denotes more cycle lanes available relative to all road types ( Smith et al, 2019a ).…”

“…Out of all themes and categories identified in the qualitative data, the overarching theme, sub-themes and categories corresponding to objectively measured child and school variables were selected and used for further quantitative analyses to contextualise participants’ narrative accounts ( Table 1 ) (e.g., Smith et al (2019a) ).…”

“…As Panter and Colleagues (2019) highlighted, qualitative or mixed method studies are often scarce and rated as low quality in systematic reviews on travel behaviour. However, these sources can provide insights into potential contexts and mechanisms of how interventions work, as well as in-depth examination of what factors influence a specific behaviour ( Crawford and Garrard, 2013 , Larouche et al, 2018 , Panter et al, 2017 , Smith et al, 2019a ).…”

Built and Natural Environmental Correlates of Parental Safety Concerns for Children’s Active Travel to School

“…Although a number of studies have identified the relationships between various parental safety perception variables and children's ATS, little is known about how parental safety concerns are associated with surrounding environmental conditions. A recent study showed that parents' perceptions about safety from traffic in a neighborhood environment were not associated with objectively assessed characteristics [16]. In contrast, Lee and Kim [17] found that parental safety concern was an intermediate outcome between the built environment and children's walking to school, and that parents' perceived measures and objective environmental measures are significantly correlated.…”