Parent Perceptions of Walking Safety

Introduction: Childhood obesity in the U.S. is rising at the same time that opportunities for physical-activity are decreasing. Getting to or leaving from school in an active form can provide children with additional opportunities for daily physical activity. Yet walking and biking to school is highly dependent on parents – who act as gatekeepers of child behavior – and specifically their concerns over traffic safety. In this paper, we examine the relationship between features of the walking environment surrounding elementary schools and parental levels of concerns over an unaccompanied upper elementary child walking to school.

Methods: The collection process was accomplished by 55 parents of elementary students on location using mobile Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and took place over 7 sessions spanning 3 months. The effort produced a fine-grained inventory of 14 street attributes and 7 intersection attributes for 85% of the streets and 86% of the intersections within the school district. The relationship between street and intersection audits and parent concern were tested using logistic regression.

Results: Parents consistently reported being concerned over child walking safety when the streets lacked sidewalks. They also indicated that the condition of the sidewalk was also important: parent concern was higher when the sidewalk was seen as obstructed or had a poor walking surface. Intersections caused additional concern, even when involving residential streets yet especially when larger roads were present. Traffic control features had no noticeable affect on parent concern.

Conclusions: Understanding which features of the streetscape are associated with parent concerns of child walking safety allows communities to identify and address key barriers to safe routes to school, which can help children, parents, and others in their communities recover a key form of daily physical activity in their lives.