Resource Library

How can you make it easier for your community to access local school facilities like gyms, fields, basketball courts, and playgrounds?   

Limited evidence exists on the metabolic and cardiovascular risk correlates of commuting by vehicle, a habitual form of sedentary behavior.

The authors are researchers at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, Chapel Hil, North Carolina.  They provide a review of the health benefits of active transportation as a call to transportation planners to include health in the agenda for transportation planning, funding, and engineering considerations. 

This study was designed to examine whether residents living in neighborhoods that are less conducive to walking or other physical activities are more likely to develop diabetes and, if so, whether recent immigrants are particularly susceptible to such effects.

This article provides an overview of the evidence base concerning unintentional injuries associated with popular forms of physical activities for youth, and describes how injury prevention and child obesity professionals can work together to prevent injuries while promoting active lifestyles.

This brief examines the extent to which local land use laws require structural improvements that facilitate physical activity. It also examines whether such requirements vary based on community income. The data was collected in 2010 from 264 communities across the United States.

This statewide study was undertaken to assess how accessible and friendly Hawaii roads are to walking and bicycling.

Few studies have examined how joint-use agreements between schools and communities affect use of school facilities after hours for physical activity in under-resourced communities. The objective of this study was to assess whether these agreements can increase community member use of these opened spaces outside of school hours.

Limited evidence exists on the metabolic and cardiovascular risk correlates of commuting by vehicle, a habitual form of sedentary behavior. To examine the association between commuting distance, physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and metabolic risk indicators.

A recent paper in the economics literature finds an inverse relationship between gasoline prices and obesity risk—suggesting that increased gasoline prices via higher gasoline taxes may have the effect of reducing obesity prevalence. This study builds upon that paper.

Availability of public neighborhood parks is associated with physical activity. Little is known about how parks contribute to population energy balance. This study estimated energy expenditure associated with the use of neighborhood parks and compared energy expenditure by activity areas within parks and by neighborhood race/ethnicity and income.

This paper examines parents' responses to key factors associated with mode choices for school trips. The research was conducted with parents of elementary school students in Denver Colorado as part of a larger investigation of school travel.

To successfully stimulate cycling, it is necessary to understand the factors that facilitate or inhibit cycling. Little is known about how changes in the neighborhood environment are related to changes in cycling behavior. This study aimed to identify environmental determinants of the uptake of cycling after relocation.

This article reports on a study that explored the barriers that prevent parents from allowing their children to commute to school. The authors used data from parents of school children in Illinois, U.S., as reported in the National Safe Routes to School Parent Surveys.

This commentary represents a consensus of next actions towards creating built environments that support healthy active living. The policy environment and Canadian evidence are reviewed. Issues and challenges to policy change are discussed.

To make health a decision criterion for the Atlanta BeltLine, a multibillion-dollar transit, trails, parks, and redevelopment project, a HIA was conducted in 2005–2007 to anticipate and influence the BeltLine's effect on health determinants.

To better understand bicyclists’ preferences for facility types, GPS units were used to observe the behavior of 164 cyclists in Portland, Oregon, USA for several days each. Trip purpose and several other trip-level variables recorded by the cyclists, and the resulting trips were coded to a highly detailed bicycle network.

Walking school buses (WSB) increase children’s physical activity, but their impact on pedestrian safety behaviors (PSB) is unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, the authors tested the feasibility of a protocol evaluating changes to PSB during a WSB program.

Thousands of American children under the age of 10 years are injured annually as pedestrians. Despite the scope of this public health problem, knowledge about behavioral control and developmental factors involved in the etiology of child pedestrian safety is limited.

This study investigated this unexplored avenue of research and identified the influences on parental attitudes towards their children walking and bicycling to school, as part of a larger nationwide effort to make children more physically active and combat rising trends of childhood obesity in the US.