Reliability and validity of destination-specific barriers to walking and cycling for youth
Introduction
Walking to destinations, such as school, is an important contributor to youth physical activity levels. In this paper we use the terms youth to refer to 5–18year olds, children to refer to 5–11year olds and adolescents to refer to 12–18year olds. Studies have found that children who walk to school have higher activity levels than those who travel by car (Alexander et al., 2005, Heelan et al., 2005, Burdette and Whitaker, 2005) and are less likely to be overweight (Gordon-Larsen, Nelson, and Beam, 2005). Unfortunately, there has been a sharp decline in this activity (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006, Ham et al., 2005).
Several recent studies have investigated the role of the built environment, such as residential and intersection density, in relation to walking to school (Braza et al., 2004, Gielen et al., 2004, Ewing et al., 2004). It has also been shown that perceptions of the local environment and parental concerns are related to children's active transportation (Carver et al., 2005). Even in walkable neighborhoods, however, parental concerns (traffic, safety, convenience) were a factor in predicting youth commuting (Kerr et al., 2006). “Safe routes to schools” programs have shown that both educational and environmental change is necessary to promote walking (Collins and Kearns, 2004). These previous studies can be interpreted from a socio-ecological model perspective of behavior change that emphasizes the multiple levels of influence on behavior (Sallis et al., 2006).
While many previous studies have shown that active commuting to school contributes to youth activity levels, active transportation to other youth-oriented destinations such as parks has been understudied (Frank et al., 2007). Although schools are an important active commuting destination, visited on most days of the week, youth may have to attend a school that is not within reasonable commuting distance. Other destinations may be within commuting distance, but it is not known if barriers are destination-specific or if one set of items can assess barriers to multiple potential walking destinations. It is therefore important to test whether barriers to walking or cycling vary by destination.
This study aimed to test the reliability and validity of a new survey instrument developed to measure psychosocial and perceived environmental barriers to walking and cycling to three local destinations. Since perceived barriers and concerns have been shown to be related to youth's walking behavior, even after controlling for the environment (Kerr et al., 2006), it is important to have a reliable and valid instrument to measure this construct. Previous survey studies only focused on a few items, did not report the reliability of the surveys used or reported poor reliability, or were concerned with walking to school without considering other important active commuting destinations for youth (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006, Kerr et al., 2006, Evenson et al., 2006). Most questioned parents rather than adolescents themselves (Carver et al., 2005) and only female adolescents have been surveyed in the past (Evenson et al., 2006). This study surveyed parents of youth 5–18years old and adolescents aged 12–18years old.
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Participants
Parents of youth (aged 5–18) and adolescents (aged 12–18) were recruited in three United States cities; San Diego, CA, Boston, MA and Cincinnati, OH. For adolescents, we attempted to recruit parent-child pairs to complete the survey.
Recruitment
Within the three cities, participants were recruited from neighborhoods believed to vary by walkability and income. In Cincinnati and San Diego neighborhoods were identified from census and land use data and local knowledge. A variety of recruitment methods were
Results
A total of 287 parents of youth aged 5–18years completed the first survey (Boston: 15.7%, Cincinnati: 37.3%, San Diego: 47.0%); 82% were female, over 50% reported some college education, and 65% were Caucasian. The mean age of the child for whom the parent provided data was 12.0 (3.6 SD) years.
A total of 187 adolescents participated (Boston: 32.3%, Cincinnati: 24.9%, San Diego: 42.9%). Fifty-two percent were females, and 52% were Caucasian. The mean age was 14.7 (1.7 SD) years. There were 162
Discussion
Active commuting rates in youth are currently low. To change behavior, both psychosocial and perceived environmental barriers must be assessed and addressed. Our findings support the test–retest reliability of a self-report instrument measuring perceived barriers to walking/cycling to different locations. Principal components analyses found three components (environmental, psychosocial/planning, and safety) that were consistent between the parent and adolescent reports and across the three
Conclusion
The three barrier subscales to active commuting to multiple destinations demonstrated good reliability and some initial evidence of validity for both parents of youth and adolescents. This is the first neighborhood environment survey to be completed by adolescents and their parents. The difference in reports between parents and adolescents, particularly for parks and shops may be due to the respondents considering different parks or shops as the destination, whereas both groups would report on
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