Project BEAT: Built Environment and Active Transport

The proposed research programme directly addresses how the built environment contributes to physical activity levels and obesity among children and youth in the context of school transport. Increasing active school transport (AST) remains an under-examined and under-utilized focus for intervention in Canada. It also provides a focused context in which to understand the extent to which built environments impact physical activity and ultimately, may contribute to obesity amongst Canadians. Understanding the correlates and mechanisms that give rise to AST is critical to establishing a healthy and sustainable future for Canadian communities and will inform policy initiatives to increase this behaviour.

The specific objectives of our research programme are to:

  1. Build a unified theoretical model of AST and the built environment by examining the personal, family, social and environmental correlates of active school transport using objective measures of physical activity, environmental features, and measures of adiposity;
  2. Identify the prevalence and correlates of active school transport in Ontario; and
  3. Develop the research and evaluation capacity to examine the relationship between the built environment and physical activity, and inform practice and policy decisions regarding AST.

We will address these objectives in a series of sequential and overlapping stages and studies that address AST at multiple levels - local (neighbourhood/municipal), regional (Greater Toronto Area) and provincial (Ontario). These include

  1. a theory-building qualitative study engaging children and their parents in order to get at the qualitative reasons behind choices about active transport and what anxieties and empowerments are created in built environments that lead to the development of those choices;
  2. a quantitative study examining the relationship between the built environment and the active school transport mode choice which will also identify whether active school commuters in the Greater Toronto Area are more physically active and have a healthier body weight in comparison to passive school commuters;
  3. a quantitative cross-sectional survey of provincial prevalence and correlates of active school transport.

Overall, the BEAT project will

  1. identify the potential contribution of active school transport to the overall physical activity levels and weight status of children in the GTA;
  2. address the atheoretical nature of existing research through the development of a grounded theory linking AST with the built environment which will be the basis for future intervention studies by targeting modifiable features that have the greatest impact on transport behaviour; and
  3. provide insight into provincial levels of AST which can also be the basis of future surveillance efforts. The project is novel in its development of a more complete conceptual model in understanding AST and the built environment.