Children’s Access to Non-School Destinations by Active or Independent Travel: A Scoping Review

Elise Desjardins, Zahra Tavakoli (), Antonio Páez and Edward Owen Douglas Waygood
Additional contact information
Elise Desjardins: School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
Zahra Tavakoli: Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada
Antonio Páez: School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
Edward Owen Douglas Waygood: Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Background: Children’s access to non-school destinations is important for their well-being, but this has been overlooked in transport planning. Research on children’s access to non-school destinations is growing, and there is a need for a comprehensive overview, examining both quantitative and qualitative studies, of the existing evidence on places that children access by active or independent travel. Objectives: Identify and summarize quantitative and qualitative research on the topic of active or independent travel to non-school destinations for elementary aged children (6 to 13 years old). Methods: Papers published in English between 1980 and July 2021 were sourced from: (i) Web of Science Core Collection; (ii) PubMed; and (iii) APA PsycInfo. Three relevant journals related to children and transport were hand searched: (i) Children’s Geographies; (ii) Journal of Transport & Health; and (iii) Journal of Transport Geography. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1980 and July 2021. Covidence, an online software platform for systematic reviews, was used to organize articles during the title and abstract screening stage. PRISMA-Scr is applied for reporting. Results: 27 papers were retained from an initial 1293 identified peer-reviewed articles. The results reveal that children in different geographies travel unsupervised or by active modes to places that support different domains of their well-being such as a friend or relative’s home, local parks or green spaces, recreational facilities, and different retail locations (e.g., restaurants). There is evidence that children’s ability to reach certain places is constrained, likely due to safety concerns or environmental barriers. Conclusions: Research on children’s diverse destinations is relatively limited as compared to trips to school. Various methodologies have been applied and can be combined to completement each other such as objective GPS tracking and subjective surveys on places children would go if they were available. Future research should clearly report and discuss the non-school destinations that children access to better inform transport planning and policy for all aspects of children’s lives.

Keywords: active travel; activity spaces; children; destination; independent travel; meaningful places; territorial range (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12345/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12345/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12345-:d:928075

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().