The effect of household income on active school transport

Abstract

Being a small country, and having a State Primary School in almost all localities, puts Maltese primary school children in a unique advantage to engage in Active School Transport [AST], since the majority of these children live within reasonable walking/cycling distances from school. Nevertheless, every September, as soon as schools reopen, roads become congested with traffic, with rush hours journeys being reported taking approximately 20 minutes more to complete. Although back-to-school traffic has become an issue of local lay knowledge, no local statistical information is available to document the rate of AST amongst primary school children. For this reason, this evidence based dissertation aimed to predict the future of AST in Malta by analysing the potential influence of household income on AST. The research question was: Amongst primary school children, does high household income influence active school transport? A systematic literature search strategy was conducted, and a total of 14 studies met the inclusion criteria. These were eventually reduced to six studies after a preliminary quality assessment process. The six peer-reviewed articles consisted of five cross-sectional surveys, and one prospective cohort study. Design-specific Critical Appraisal Tools were selected to help critiquing the quality of the six articles. Only four of these studies provided meaningful results in relation to the research question. Overall, the findings clearly indicate that high household income has a negative influence on AST. The higher the household income, the lower is the level of active commuting to and from school. Considering the current local socio-economic scenario, the future of AST might be a difficult one, and it is thus being predicted that back-to-school traffic will continue to increase. It is therefore being recommended that more research is conducted in the local setting to help policy makers develop effective strategies to address this environmental and public health issue.