Research articleWalkability and Safety Around Elementary Schools: Economic and Ethnic Disparities
Introduction
Walking to school is an affordable and environmentally clean mode of transportation that may increase physical activity and reduce obesity.1, 2, 3 Unfortunately, recent decades have witnessed a steep decline in walking to school among school-aged children.4 In addition to individual and social factors, physical environmental barriers such as long travel distances,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 poor or missing pedestrian facilities,5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and dangers from traffic and crime4, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 have contributed to this decline. Other physical environmental features such as density, land-use mix, street connectivity, and physical amenities (such as street lighting and trees) appeared to encourage walking to school in some studies9, 13, 15, 16 yet resulted in inconsistent findings in others.5, 6, 7, 14, 15 Currently, programs are being implemented at the national, state, and local levels to improve the environmental support for walking to school. However, assessment methods and empirical evidence are still limited in terms of the specific walkability and safety issues related to children’s walking-to-school behaviors.
Meanwhile, economic and ethnic disparities have emerged as new themes related to the environmental support for walking to school. Several studies found that low-income or minority children walked more often during school travels than did affluent or non-Hispanic white children.6, 15, 17 However, other studies reported ethnicity and family income to be insignificant factors.9, 10, 18 Further, walkability and safety of the built environment may differ by the neighborhoods’ SES or ethnic composition. For example, a California study found that low-income or minority children were exposed to disproportionately high volumes of traffic.19 In such a case, the potential health benefits of walking as physical activity may be undermined by the threats to personal safety and respiratory health. These low-income, minority children may have no alternative means of transportation and are thereby called “captive walkers” in transportation literature.20 They also may have limited access to physical activity facilities21 and healthy diet options,22 and therefore have a high risk of developing obesity.23, 24
Despite these recent studies, low-income and minority neighborhoods have been underrepresented in the walkability literature.25 Very few studies have examined the relationships among walkability factors at different spatial scales26, 27, 28 or between walkability and safety.13, 29 This study examines different aspects of environmental support for walking around elementary schools, including neighborhood-level walkability, street-level walkability, and neighborhood-level safety related to traffic and crime. It also explores disparities based on the students’ economic status and ethnicity.
Section snippets
Methods
The study site consisted of the attendance areas of 73 public elementary schools in the Austin Independent School District within the city of Austin TX; the unit of analysis was the school’s attendance area. This district covers 230 square miles (59,560 hectares) and features a unique mix of sociodemographic and physical environmental characteristics. Its high percentage of Hispanic students (54.7% during the 2004–2005 school year)30 represents an important trend in the Texas population (35.9%
Results
According to GIS maps (see Figure 2 for examples), schools with higher poverty or Hispanic student rates had greater neighborhood-level walkability in their attendance areas: more students living near school, more completed sidewalk networks, and greater residential density and land-use mix. However, they also had increased dangers from traffic and crime and lower street-level walkability such as poor visual quality, lack of physical amenities, and poor maintenance.
Based on Moran’s I, most
Discussion and Conclusion
Several limitations of this study should be noted. First, GIS data were collected at different times from 2000 to 2007, and had different levels of accuracy from precise points to census blocks. However, the utility of GIS data for this type of research seems promising, because of their increasing availability, precision, and coverage. Second, different units of analyses were used for the neighborhood-level and the street-level measures. In the assessment of street-level conditions, only one
References (38)
- et al.
Physical activity levels of children who walk, cycle, or are driven to school
Am J Prev Med
(2005) - et al.
The therapeutic value of children’s everyday travel
Transport Res Part A
(2005) - et al.
Active commuting to school among NSW primary school children: implications for public health
Health Place
(2006) - et al.
Personal, family, social, and environmental correlates of active commuting to school
Am J Prev Med
(2006) - et al.
Evaluation of the California Safe Routes to School legislation: urban form changes and children’s active transportation to school
Am J Prev Med
(2005) - et al.
Linking objectively measured physical activity with objectively measured urban form: Findings from SMARTRAQ
Am J Prev Med
(2005) - et al.
The Development and Testing of an Audit for the Pedestrian Environment
Landsc Urban Plan
(2007) - et al.
Omission of active commuting to school and the prevalence of children’s health-related physical activity levels: The Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Study
Child Care Health Dev
(2002) - et al.
Barriers to children walking to or from school—United States, 2004
JAMA
(2005) Travel and environmental Implications of School Siting
(2003)