Factors influencing active travel to primary and secondary schools in Wales

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the factors associated with active travel to school on an average (typical) school day in Wales and contrasts these findings between primary and secondary school children. The analysis was based on data for 4206 primary school children (4–12 years of age) and 3203 adolescents (12–19 years of age) collected as part of the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 waves of the National Survey for Wales. Logistic regression estimates showed that living within less than one mile from the school, parents’ frequency of walking and cycling and residing in an urban area were positively associated with active travel to both primary and secondary schools. Children’s age, mother’s unavailability and home ownership were negatively associated with active travel to primary school. Gender differences were only identified in the secondary school trips with female adolescents being less likely to walk to school than males. Findings point to the importance of ‘beyond-the-school’ active-travel campaigns and intervention programmes aimed at involving parents in encouraging walking and cycling to school.

KEYWORDS:

• Active travel to school
• primary school
• high school
• walking
• youth
• UK

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Henry Small and Lisa Walters for providing access to and guidance on the National Survey for Wales data. Last but not least, the authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and useful suggestions to improve the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Dimitris Potoglou http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3060-7674