Burchartz, Alexander

Fiedler, Janis

Hinz, Thomas

Klos, Leon

Nigg, Carina

Wäsche, Hagen

English

KITopen

O.5.1.: Active transportAbstract citation ID: ckad133.231O.5.1-1 Physical environment perceptions in ruraland urban areas and their influence on adolescents’walking and non-motorized vehicle useLeon Klos1, Janis Fiedler1, Carina Nigg1,2, Alexander Burchartz1,Thomas Hinz3, Hagen Wäsche1, Claudia Niessner1, Alexander Woll11Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,Germany2Institute of Sports Science, University of Bern, Switzerland3Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz, Germany;leon.klos@kit.eduPurposeEnvironment perceptions influence adolescents’ active trans-port. However, most studies focus on urban areas only and donot differentiate between walking and the use of non-motorized vehicles (NMV; e. g. cycling, skateboarding).Therefore, we aim to describe differences in perceivedenvironment attributes across urbanicity levels and assess therelationship between perceived environment and walking aswell as NMV in adolescents stratified across urban and ruralareas.MethodsWe used cross-sectional data including age, gender, socio-economic status, environment perceptions, duration of walk-ing, and NMV use of 3,976 adolescents (14.52.0 years, 51%female) from the nationwide Motorik-Modul Study Wave 2(2014-2017) and Wave 3 pre-Covid (2018-2020) in Germany.Separate cumulative link mixed models were calculated forrural areas, small towns, medium-sized towns, and cities toanalyze relationships between environment perceptions andwalking as well as NMV use.ResultsAdolescents in urban areas report higher presence of recreationfacilities, walking and cycling infrastructure, cars, and childrenplaying outside as well as better access to shops and bus stopscompared to adolescents in rural areas. The latter perceivetheir neighborhood to be safer from crime and more pleasantfor walking and cycling compared to urban areas. Therelationships between environment perceptions and walkingdiffer between urbanicity levels. For example, public sportsfacilities (OR = 1.29), cycling paths (OR = 1.30), and carpresence are associated with walking in rural areas, whereashaving access to shops (OR = 1.26) is associated with walkingin cities. Rural-urban differences are also found for NMV use.For example, access to shops (OR = 1.16), cycling paths(OR = 1.29), and having a pleasant neighborhood for walkingand cycling (OR = 1.29) are associated with NMV use in ruralareas, whereas in cities, car presence (OR = 0.80) relates toNVT use. Public sports facilities (OR = 1.23-1.33) are asso-ciated with NVT use across urbanicity levels (all p < 0.05).ConclusionsThis work suggests that active transport behaviors of rural andurban living adolescents are influenced by different neighbor-hood environment characteristics. Therefore, programs target-ing active transport should consider specifics of the rural orurban context. Further, there is little overlap between factorsassociated with walking and NVT use, highlighting differentneeds based on transport mode choice.2023 HEPA Europe Conference i93Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/33/Supplement_1/ckad133.231/7265646 by Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie - KIT user on 15 September 2023

Physical environment perceptions in rural and urban areas and their influence on adolescents’ walking and non-motorized vehicle use

https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000162271/151322408

Physical environment perceptions in rural and urban areas and their influence on adolescents’ walking and non-motorized vehicle use

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

KITopen