The Effects of Gender and Safety Perceptions on Active Transportation Use in Rural Communities: A Health Belief Model Assessment

Introduction:

In collaboration with the Blue Zones Project in Oregon, the current project aimed to evaluate the positive impacts of built environment changes in a rural city. Beginning in January 2016 and over the course of three years, built environment changes will be made in the city with the intention of increasing access to bike lanes, trails, and sidewalks. This paper presents the results of the first wave of data collection evaluating active transportation attitudes and behaviors from a Health Belief Model (HBM) standpoint. Can perceptions of vulnerability and individual attitudes impact a community’s use of active transportation? Past research has shown the HBM to be an effective tool for evaluating physical activity; the current project aims to advance that research by demonstrating that the HBM can also be applied to active transportation in rural communities.

Method:

Over 500 community members completed a survey that evaluated positive attitudes toward biking and walking as forms of transportation, negative attitudes about active transportation, social norms and support, perceptions of safety, neighborhood information, and demographics. In addition, behavioral data was collected in the city in the form of active transportation counts at five locations, three times in the year.

Results:

Multiple linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the health belief model. Overall attitudes were evaluated by taking a ratio of positive statements to negative statements about active transportation use; perceptions of vulnerability were evaluated by looking at various safety indicators. Results show that both attitudes and safety significantly predict one’s likelihood of participating in active transportation (p < .05). Behavioral count data interestingly revealed that men were the primary users of trails and bike paths in town; thus, a secondary hypothesis was evaluated. We believed that this might be the case because women have higher concerns about safety, and so we evaluated gender as a moderator in the model. We found that women had significantly higher perceptions of safety risks in terms of active transportation, which was leading to a lower overall use of active transportation.

Conclusions:

The first assessment of active transportation in our rural community indicated that increasing positive attitudes, decreasing negative attitudes, and increasing the city’s safety will have the potential to increase active transportation use. Interestingly, interventions may need to be targeted specifically at women. This three year project has the potential to reveal how built environment changes can help build healthier communities in rural areas.