Dangaia Sims

Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Active Lions: A Campaign to Promote Active Travel to a University Campus

Purpose: To outline the development, implementation, and evaluation of a multistrategy intervention to promote active transportation, on a large university campus. Design: Single group pilot study. Setting: A large university in the Northeastern United States. Participants: University students (n = 563), faculty and staff (employees, n = 999) were included in the study. Intervention: The Active Lions campaign aimed to increase active transportation to campus for all students and employees. The campaign targeted active transport participation through the development of a smartphone application and the implementation of supporting social marketing and social media components. Measures: Component-specific measures included app user statistics, social media engagement, and reach of social marketing strategies. Overall evaluation included cross-sectional online surveys preintervention and postintervention of student and employee travel patterns and campaign awareness. Analysis: Number of active trips to campus were summed, and the percentage of trips as active was calculated. T tests compared the differences in outcomes from preintervention to postintervention. Results: Students had a higher percentage of active trips postintervention (64.2%) than preintervention (49.2%; t = 3.32, P = .001), although there were no differences for employees (7.9% and 8.91%). Greater awareness of Active Lions was associated with greater active travel. Conclusion: This multistrategy approach to increase active transportation on a college campus provided insight on the process of developing and implementing a campaign with the potential for impacting health behaviors among campus members.

An Examination of Workplace Influences on Active Commuting in a Sample of University Employees.

CONTEXT Active commuting (AC; walking or biking) to work is associated with many benefits, though rates remain low. Employers can benefit from greater employee AC, through improved employee physical activity, though how the workplace is related to AC is unclear. OBJECTIVE The current study sought to examine how the workplace environment is related to AC participation. DESIGN This was a cross-sectional, online survey conducted in April-May 2014. PARTICIPANTS A volunteer sample of university employees (n = 551) was recruited. SETTING A large university in the northeastern United States. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The online survey addressed travel habits, demographics, and workplace social and physical environment for AC. Pearson correlations and t tests were used to examine relationships between the percentage of all trips as AC and workplace influences and a multivariate regression analysis predicted AC participation. RESULTS Participants reported 0.86 ± 2.6 AC trips per week. Percentage of trips as AC trips associated with perceived coworker AC (P < .001), parking availability (r = -0.22, P < .001), and bike parking availability (r = 0.24, P < .001). Individuals reporting greater walking time from their parking spot to their workplace reported a higher percentage of trips as AC compared with those with closer parking (P < .001). Individuals with a parking pass were less likely to AC than those with no permit (P < .001). The full multivariate model explained 42.5% of the variance in percentage of trips per week via AC (P < .001), having a parking pass (B = 0.23, P < .001), parking availability (B = -0.17, P < .001), perceived coworkers AC (B = 0.08, P = .02), and greater perceived walk time to campus (B = -0.43, P < .001) as significant predictors. CONCLUSIONS This study provided insight into institutional influences on AC, indicating that policy, infrastructure, and programmatic initiatives could be used to promote workplace AC.

A Social Media Campaign for Promoting Active Travel to a University Campus

Context: Promoting regular physical activity can be challenging. Active travel (AT), walking and biking for transportation, is a way to achieve more activity, but rates remain low in the United States. With increased technology use, social media is one way to expand reach. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the reach of social media in a campaign to promote AT to a university campus. Design: This was an observational study. Setting: The Active Lions campaign promoted AT to and on a large university campus for employees and students. The campaign included local events promoting AT, a smartphone app, and social media postings (Facebook, Twitter) from August 2014 to August 2015. Main Outcome Measures: The social media postings included different types of messages about AT. These posts were then examined and categorized, and any responses or interactions were recorded to identify trends for engagement. Results: The Facebook page had 177 followers, educational posts elicited the most responses, posts with pictures averaged 6 clicks and 1 like, and posts with links averaged 3 clicks and 1 like. Active Lions had 103 Twitter followers, educational posts on Twitter had the most activity, with 149 interactions. Conclusion: Facebook and Twitter appear to reach some of their followers in motivating and promoting regular physical activity. It is important, however, to recognize that posting on social media targets the younger population. Therefore, to reach more adults, it may be more beneficial to find other tactics to promote regular physical activity.

Examining Capacity and Functioning of Bicycle Coalitions: A Descriptive Study

Background Bicycle coalitions represent a strong partner in creating bike-friendly communities through advocacy for physical infrastructure, encouragement for biking, or education about safety. Despite their versatility, little is known about their functioning. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine capacity, strengths, and weaknesses of these organizations. Methods Bicycle coalitions/advocacy groups from English-speaking countries were recruited to take part in an online survey via email invitation. The survey addressed basic information about the coalition (community demographics, location), leadership, communication strategies, coalition priorities, barriers to programming/activities, and partners. Results Coalitions (n = 56) from four countries completed the survey. Most coalitions operated as a non-profit (n = 44, 95.7%), 45% (n = 21) have paid staff as leaders, while 37% (n = 17) have volunteers as leaders. The following skills were represented in coalitions’ leadership: fundraising (n = 31, 53.4%), event planning (n = 31, 53.4%), urban planning (n = 26, 44%), and policy/legislation expertise (n = 26, 44.8%). Education (n = 26, 63.4%) and encouragement (n = 25, 61.6%) were viewed as top priorities and the safety of bicyclists (n = 21, 46.7%) and advocacy for infrastructure and policy (n = 22, 48.9%) is the focus of most activities. A lack of financial resources (n = 36, 81.8%) and capable personnel (n = 25, 56.8%) were significant barriers to offering programming in the community and that the availability of grants to address issues (n = 38, 86.4%) would be the top motivator for improvements. Conclusion Bike coalitions represent a critical partner in creating activity-friendly environments and understanding their capacity allows for creating skill/capacity building intervention programs, development of effective toolkits and fostering strong collaborations to address physical inactivity.

Predicting discordance between perceived and estimated walk and bike times among university faculty, staff, and students

ABSTRACT Evidence indicates the importance of walking and biking as a form of transportation, known as active travel (AT), on various health outcomes. Time is one of the most cited barriers to AT. The objective of this study was to examine which variables predict walk and bike discordance (discrepancy between perceived an actual travel time) to campus among faculty, staff, and students. This was a cross-sectional online survey conducted in the Fall of 2014 with a volunteer sample of university students (n = 252) and faculty and staff (n = 253) at a large northeastern university. Participants responded to questions on demographics, psychosocial, AT, AT correlates, and residence. Google maps were used to determine time and distance from their residence to their most frequented campus location, from which discordance was determined. Among faculty and staff, bike discordance was associated with gender, age, biking to/from campus, and AT. Walk discordance was associated with walking to/from campus and distance to campus. Among students, bike discordance was associated with having a parking permit, self-efficacy for biking, gender, age, biking to/from campus, and AT. Walk discordance was associated with having a parking permit and distance to campus. Among faculty and staff, current travel behavior and factors relative to more AT behaviors are important predictors of discordance. Similar results were found among students. Individuals who AT more often likely have more concordance due to behavioral exposure. Likewise, those who are more fit are more likely to be health conscious and thus more likely to incorporate physical activity into other aspects of life. Highlights Time is one of the most cited barriers to active travel. Variables associated with discordance (discrepancy between actual travel time and perceived travel time) were determined. A cross-sectional online survey with a sample of university students, and faculty, and staff at a large northeastern university. Travel behavior and factors related to more AT behaviors are important predictors of discordance. Individuals who AT more often and are more fit likely have more concordance due to behavioral exposure.

The Bicycle: A Technological and Social History

The history of the bicycle includes both the technological advancements made in developing the modern bicycle and the social movements the bicycle has been associated with. This chapter first briefly reviews the evolution of the bicycle from a device with wooden wheels and no pedals to the range of utilitarian and racing bicycles available today. Then, the chapter focuses on the role of this relatively new transportation technology role in significant modern social movements, and how that role in social movements has framed our perception of the bicycle. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the bicycle in contemporary American society, and the challenges and opportunities associated with the bicycle as a means to support healthy communities.

Policy and Law Approaches to Bicycling

Laws and policies are put into place at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure that cyclists can ride safely and in tandem with other road users. A number of local and state laws are in place that can be subdivided into four major categories: traffic laws for bicyclists, traffic laws for motorists that affect bicyclists, bike plans, and Safe Routes to School initiatives. Each of which are discussed in more detail in the chapter. Although these laws and policies exist, many remain unclear and unenforced. Bike advocates should continue to do their part to ensure a better road for cyclists.

If We Build It, Will They Come? Environmental Approaches to Bicycle Promotion

It is intuitive to assume that the environment has a powerful influence on individual behavior, but this relationship is not always clear. There are myriad environmental approaches to increasing bicycling, and the impacts of such interventions are highly variable. This chapter presents an overview of the research connecting the environment to bicycling. To make this a more manageable topic, we limit our discussion to the built environment (i.e., this chapter does not discuss weather or topography) and then present environmental interventions aimed at encouraging bicycling alongside empirical evidence for their efficacy. We further divide our discussion of environmental interventions by scale: micro and macro. Common micro-scale interventions include bicycle parking or bicycle crossings, while macro-scale interventions include citywide bicycle networks. Both scales are important for fostering a bicycling-supportive environment; in fact, implementing interventions at both scales can have an additive effect, and potentially a multiplicative effect, on bicycling in a community.

Why We Bike and Why We Don’t

It is essential to understand what influences biking behavior in order to identify which populations are less likely to participate, thus requiring targeted approaches, as well as to identify any modifiable factors that practitioners could target through interventions, programs, and policies. This chapter examines personal, social, cultural, and environmental includes on biking and active travel for children and adults. Additionally we examine the influences on biking for special populations: millennials, women, older adults, and underserved populations. There is a vast array of influences that can drive behavior for community members, emphasizing the importance of a multi-sector approach to promoting biking in communities, beyond engineering to include educational and encouragement-based approaches for all population groups represented in a community.

Community-Level Strategies for Promoting Bicycling

Community-level approaches for promoting or changing behavior are long-standing strategies for impacting population-level health outcomes. These approaches have the potential to influence participation in a behavior for all of those who are residing in the community. This chapter will discuss a number of broader approaches designed to impact biking behavior at a community level. These evidence-based strategies have become increasingly popular in countries around the world and provide support for biking in the form of education/encouragement (Open Streets/Ciclovias, educational campaigns, bicycle coalitions) or supportive engineering (end of trip facilities, bike shares, connection with public transportation). The evidence-based strategies outlined here provide a foundation for communities to build initiatives to fit the needs, preferences and resources of their citizens.