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Children's Access to Non-School Destinations by Active or Independent Travel: A Scoping Review
Elise Desjardins1, Zahra Tavakoli2, Antonio Páez1
1School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada.
Insights
Children aged 6-13 travel independently to various non-school destinations like parks and friends' homes, but safety and environmental barriers limit access. Further research is needed to inform transport planning for children's well-being.
Area of Science:
- Transport Planning
- Child Well-being
- Active Travel
Background:
- Children's access to non-school destinations is crucial for well-being but often overlooked in transport planning.
- Growing research highlights the importance of active or independent travel for children to reach diverse destinations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and summarize quantitative and qualitative research on active or independent travel to non-school destinations for elementary-aged children (6-13 years).
Main Methods:
- Systematic literature search across Web of Science, PubMed, and APA PsycInfo (1980-2021).
- Hand search of three relevant journals and PRISMA-Scr reporting.
- Covidence software used for article screening.
Main Results:
- 27 papers analyzed, revealing children travel to places like friends' homes, parks, recreational facilities, and retail locations.
- Evidence suggests safety concerns and environmental barriers restrict children's access to certain destinations.
- Children utilize active or independent travel modes to reach these varied non-school destinations.
Conclusions:
- Research on children's non-school travel is limited compared to school travel.
- Combining methodologies like GPS tracking and surveys can enhance understanding.
- Future research must detail non-school destinations to inform transport policy for children's lives.
Background:
Children's access to non-school destinations is important for their well-being, but this has been overlooked in transport planning. Research on children's access to non-school destinations is growing, and there is a need for a comprehensive overview, examining both quantitative and qualitative studies, of the existing evidence on places that children access by active or independent travel.
Objectives:
Identify and summarize quantitative and qualitative research on the topic of active or independent travel to non-school destinations for elementary aged children (6 to 13 years old).
Methods:
Papers published in English between 1980 and July 2021 were sourced from: (i) Web of Science Core Collection; (ii) PubMed; and (iii) APA PsycInfo. Three relevant journals related to children and transport were hand searched: (i) Children's Geographies; (ii) Journal of Transport & Health; and (iii) Journal of Transport Geography. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1980 and July 2021. Covidence, an online software platform for systematic reviews, was used to organize articles during the title and abstract screening stage. PRISMA-Scr is applied for reporting.
Results:
27 papers were retained from an initial 1293 identified peer-reviewed articles. The results reveal that children in different geographies travel unsupervised or by active modes to places that support different domains of their well-being such as a friend or relative's home, local parks or green spaces, recreational facilities, and different retail locations (e.g., restaurants). There is evidence that children's ability to reach certain places is constrained, likely due to safety concerns or environmental barriers.
Conclusions:
Research on children's diverse destinations is relatively limited as compared to trips to school. Various methodologies have been applied and can be combined to completement each other such as objective GPS tracking and subjective surveys on places children would go if they were available. Future research should clearly report and discuss the non-school destinations that children access to better inform transport planning and policy for all aspects of children's lives.
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