An example of geospatial modelling showing people movement around government schools.
Researchers will use cutting edge big data and geospatial modelling techniques to tackle the dramatic decline in the number of West Australian children walking or riding to school, thanks to a Healthway grant of almost $200,000 awarded to a team from The Kids Research Institute Australia and Curtin University.
Forty years ago 75 per cent of children walked or rode to school, but this has now dropped to just one in five, meaning children are missing valuable opportunities to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.
To try to understand what’s stopping children from ‘actively travelling’ to school, and what might encourage more to do so, the research team will create an innovative simulator that models different factors specific to different school zones.
Project lead Professor Pete Gething – who is head of Geospatial Health and Development at The Kids and a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University – said the fact so few children walked or rode to school not only contributed to traffic and pollution, but missed a valuable chance to combat rising childhood obesity rates.
“The reasons behind this drop in active travel are complex and vary from school to school based on factors like infrastructure, safety concerns, and demographic characteristics of families,” Professor Gething said.
“One-size-fits-all solutions are unlikely to be effective. We need innovative approaches to develop localised, data-driven strategies tailored to the unique contexts of different school catchment areas.”
The Smart Walking and Cycling: Active Travel to School Simulator project will leverage a powerful data tool already developed by the Geospatial Health and Development team – VirtualWA – to simulate human mobility patterns across WA at a very high resolution.
The project team includes Camilo Vargas and Associate Professor Ewan Cameron, also from The Kids and Curtin, with the Department of Transport (DoT) a collaborating agency to ensure integration with DoT’s existing active travel programs and initiatives.
Associate Professor Cameron said the team would integrate diverse datasets on infrastructure, travel behaviours, safety perceptions, demographics and other relevant factors into VirtualWA.
“Using this rich data, we can analyse barriers and facilitators for active travel specific to each school's neighbourhood,” he said.
The simulator will model the impact of street infrastructure, safety issues, family contexts and more, and simulate a variety of potential scenarios including infrastructure upgrades, safety education programs, and travel incentives.
“This allows us to predict which interventions or combinations thereof are most effective for increasing active travel in each locality,” Associate Professor Cameron said.
The project aims to generate evidence-based, localised policy recommendations to Government and health promotion agencies implement targeted programs and infrastructure changes.
“By pioneering this cutting-edge integration of big data, geospatial modelling and policy simulations, we aim to significantly boost active travel to schools across Perth,” Professor Gething said.
“This will help foster healthier lifestyles, reduce traffic congestion and pollution, create safer streets, lower healthcare costs, and cultivate more vibrant communities. The insights can guide investments today for long-lasting benefits to childhood health and community wellbeing.”
DoT Active Transport Director Michelle Prior echoed the importance of contemporary, evidence-based techniques.
“The proposed research project led by Professor Peter Gething and his team offers an innovative and highly promising approach to address the challenge of declining walking and riding to school,” Ms Prior said.
“Integrating real-world data from DoT’s existing active travel initiatives will help ensure the resulting recommendations are grounded in actual community needs and behaviours.”
The project is one of four to share in Healthway’s latest Targeted Research Round, all of which aim to address gaps in measuring health behaviours and to inform future policy.
For more on Healthway’s latest grants, see their media release.