Children and Parental Barriers to Active Commuting to School: A Comparison Study

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were: to compare the barriers to active commuting to and from school (ACS) between children and their parents separately for children and adolescents; and to analyze the association between ACS and the children’s and parents’ barriers. A total of 401 child–parent pairs, from Granada, Jaén, Toledo and Valencia, self-reported, separately, their mode of commuting to school and work, respectively, and the children’s barriers to ACS. T-tests and chi-square tests were used to analyze the differences by age for continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Binary logistic regressions were performed to study the association between ACS barriers of children and parents and ACS. Both children and adolescents perceived higher physical and motivational barriers and social support barriers towards ACS than their parents (all p < 0.05). Additionally, the parents perceived higher distance, traffic safety, convenience, built environment, crime-related safety and weather as barriers towards ACS, than their children (all p < 0.05). Moreover, a higher perception of barriers was related to lower ACS. The results of our study showed the necessity of attenuating the perceptions of children and their parents in order to increase ACS. This is relevant to develop interventions in the specific contexts of each barrier and involving both populations.