Resource Library

This study examines the link between childhood overweight status and school outcomes (academic achievement, teacher reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, social skills, approaches to learning, school absences, and grade repetition) between kindergarten entry and end of the third grade.

This article examines single-use, low-density land use patterns and reports that a 5% increase in neighborhood walkability is associated with:

Marin County’s Safe Routes to School Program has been successful in promoting walking and biking to school. Much of the program’s success can be attributed to the contributions made by parents, teachers, and community volunteers.

This study evaluates the California Safe Routes to School legislation which provides funds for construction projects such as sidewalks, traffic lights, pedestrian crossing improvements, and bicycle paths.

This review uses the Transportation Research Information Services database to identify studies on engineering to reduce speed, separate pedestrians from vehicles, and increase visibility of pedestrians.

This article reviews what is known about the built environment and its relationship to physical activity.

This study evaluates and assesses 10 Safe Routes to School traffic improvement projects in terms of expected outcomes for pedestrian and bicycle safety as well as for amount of walking.

This is a thorough report on the relationship between the built environment and physical activity that reviews physical activity and health, long term trends affecting physical activity levels, current research on the built environment and physical activity, as well as current knowledge gaps.

This review analyzes the effects of school physical education programs on physical activity levels and attitudes toward physical education and physical activity in children and adults.

This study reports that students who walk both to and from school accrue the most minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA).

This article focuses on the relationship between the built environment, travel behavior, and public health outcomes.

This study uses an accelerometer and questions describing travel habits to evaluate physical activity levels among primary school children.

This article reviews research on the association between physical activity among school-aged children and academic outcomes.

This article focuses on the relationship between the built environment, travel behavior, and public health outcomes.

Adoption and maintenance of healthy lifestyles by substituting walking or biking for short trips currently taken by car could simultaneously improve health and reduce oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

This study examines the association between traffic-related pollution and childhood asthma among 208 children in 10 communities in Southern California.

School proximity to students matters. Students with shorter walk and bike times to school are more likely to walk or bike.

Using objective measurement to investigate the physical activity patterns of children by mode of travel to school, this study reports that children who walk to school are significantly more active than those who travel by car.

Walking and cycling are dangerous ways to get around American cities. Walking and cycling can be made safer, demonstrated by the lower fatality and injury rates in the Netherlands and Germany.

Because of travel behavior differences, school location has an impact on air emissions.