The purpose of this paper is to review intervention studies related to active school transportation to guide future intervention research. A systematic review was conducted to identify intervention studies of active transportation to school published in the scientific literature through January 2010.
- Five electronic databases and a manual search were conducted. Detailed information was extracted, including a quantitative assessment comparing the effect sizes, and a qualitative assessment using an established evaluation tool.
- The study identified 14 interventions that focused on active transportation to school. These interventions mainly focused on primary school children in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
- The findings of this study include:
- Existing interventions to promote active transportation to and from school are heterogeneous, due to the size, scope, and focus of the intervention and measurements.
- Interventions with appropriate school, parent, and community involvement and that work toward a specific goal (i.e., increasing active transportation) seemed to be more effective than interventions that were broader in focus.
- Intervention quality was often low as measured by the EPHPP tool.
- Interventions evidenced a small but promising effectiveness in increasing active transportation to school.
- More research with higher quality study designs and measures should be conducted to further evaluate interventions and to determine the most successful strategies for increasing active transportation to school.
Chillón, P, Evenson, KR, Vaughn, A, and Ward, DS. "A Systematic Review of Interventions for Promoting Active Transportation to School." International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 8.1 (2011): 10.
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