Children's experiences of care on walking and cycling journeys between home and school in Healthy New Towns: Reframing active school travel

Tupper, E., Morris, S., Lawlor, E. R. , Summerbell, C., Panter, J., Jago, R. and Pollard, T. (2024) Children's experiences of care on walking and cycling journeys between home and school in Healthy New Towns: Reframing active school travel. Health and Place, 85, 103147. (doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103147) (PMID:38103412)

Abstract

The Healthy New Town programme in England set out to ‘put health into place’ by supporting the design and construction of healthy places to live, including by creating safe environments for active travel. To explore the impact of this approach, this study examined how children and their families experienced school journeys in two contrasting Healthy New Towns in England, one an affluent new town in the early stages of construction and the other more economically deprived and established. We undertook photo-elicitation and go-along interviews with 24 children aged 7-12 years and semi-structured interviews with 17 caregivers. We found that experiences of care were important for children's school travel. In the ‘deprived’ town, opportunities for children to care and to be cared for were enjoyed, facilitated by routes with limited traffic, pockets of ‘nature’, and possibilities to encounter meaningful others. For families living in a town under construction, the need to negotiate unfinished travel infrastructure, and a sense of being ‘in limbo’, was experienced as an absence of care by planners and developers. Interventions to promote children's active travel should consider the role of care-full planning in facilitating walking and cycling journeys.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding This study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research (Grant Reference Number SPHR-PROG-PCBT-CS2). The NIHR School for Public Health Research is a partnership between the Universities of Sheffield; Bristol; Cambridge; Imperial; University College London; The London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM); LiLaC—a collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool and Lancaster; and Fuse - The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health a collaboration between Newcastle, Durham, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside Universities. JP is supported by the Medical Research Council (Unit Programme number MC_UU_12015/7)
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Lawlor, Dr Emma

Creator Roles

Lawlor, E.: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Tupper, E., Morris, S., Lawlor, E. R., Summerbell, C., Panter, J., Jago, R., and Pollard, T.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Health
• Journal Name: Health and Place
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1353-8292
• ISSN (Online): 1873-2054
• Published Online: 15 December 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Author(s)
• First Published: First published in Health and Place 85: 103147
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a creative commons licence