Is a change in mode of travel to school associated with a change in overall physical activity levels in children? Longitudinal results from the SPEEDY study

Background
Children who use active modes of travel (walking or cycling) to school are more physically active than those who use passive (motorised) modes. However, less is known on whether a change in mode of travel to school is associated with a change in children’s physical activity levels. The purpose of this analysis was to investigate the association between change in mode of travel to school and change in overall physical activity levels in children.

Methods
Data from 812 9–10 year old British children (59% girls) who participated in the SPEEDY study were analysed. During the summer terms of 2007 and 2008 participants completed a questionnaire and wore an accelerometer for at least three days. Two-level multiple linear regression models were used to explore the association between change in usual mode of travel to school and change in objectively measured time spent in MVPA.

Results
Compared to children whose reported mode of travel did not change, a change from a passive to an active mode of travel was associated with an increase in daily minutes spent in MVPA (boys: beta 11.59, 95% CI 0.94 to 22.24; girls: beta 11.92, 95% CI 5.00 to 18.84). This increase represented 12% of boys’ and 13% of girls’ total daily time spent in MVPA at follow-up.

Conclusion
This analysis provides further evidence that promoting active travel to school may have a role in contributing to increasing physical activity levels in children.

Change in active travel and changes in recreational and total physical activity in adults : longitudinal findings from the iConnect study

Background : To better understand the health benefits of promoting active travel, it is important to understand the relationship between a change in active travel and changes in recreational and total physical activity.

Methods : These analyses, carried out in April 2012, use longitudinal data from 1628 adult respondents (mean age 54 years; 47% male) in the UK-based iConnect study. Travel and recreational physical activity were measured using detailed seven-day recall instruments. Adjusted linear regression models were fitted with change in active travel defined as ‘decreased’ (<−15 min/week), ‘maintained’ (±15 min/week) or ‘increased’ (>15 min/week) as the primary exposure variable and changes in (a) recreational and (b) total physical activity (min/week) as the primary outcome variables.

Results : Active travel increased in 32% (n=529), was maintained in 33% (n=534) and decreased in 35% (n=565) of respondents. Recreational physical activity decreased in all groups but this decrease was not greater in those whose active travel increased. Conversely, changes in active travel were associated with commensurate changes in total physical activity. Compared with those whose active travel remained unchanged, total physical activity decreased by 176.9 min/week in those whose active travel had decreased (adjusted regression coefficient −154.9, 95% CI −195.3 to −114.5) and was 112.2 min/week greater among those whose active travel had increased (adjusted regression coefficient 135.1, 95% CI 94.3 to 175.9).

Conclusion : An increase in active travel was associated with a commensurate increase in total physical activity and not a decrease in recreational physical activity.

Time series analysis of air transportation service quality and travel demand in Japan

The evolution of domestic air travel service in Japan is a product of many factors including airline responses to the changing aviation market, government interventions in terms of regulatory/deregulatory policies, infrastructure investments, and changes in market structure. This paper presents an empirical investigation of the changing quality of passenger airline service and its implications in the domestic aviation market in Japan using qualitative review and a time series analysis of the domestic airline markets from 1986 to 2003. The results show that to meet the ultimate aim of deregulation to increase air passengers’ welfare gain, there is a need to instill measures to correct service imbalance and to create innovative airport demand-capacity management measures.

Exploring the conceptual boundaries of diaspora and battlefield tourism: Australians' travel to the Gallipoli battlefield, Turkey, as a case study

Historical tourism resources associated with diasporic communities and battlefields would at face value appear to have little in common. On closer inspection, however, diaspora and battlefield tourism share several elements in common. These commonalities are explored in greater detail, with an eye to investigating battlefield tourism sites indelibly linked to the birth of modern nations, where it is argued that there is a particularly blurred boundary between these two forms of tourism that must be recognized. 

The Gallipoli battlefield, Turkey, provides the contextual anchor for this discussion in suggesting that a key reason Australians travel to this foreign place to is to find out what it means to be an Australian. The prominence of this battlefield in the psyche of Australians is borne out of the involvement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) in the First World War campaign that commenced at what is now known as Anzac Cove at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. This campaign was the first united action of the fledging Australian nation bought together through federation in 1901.

Qualitative data collected from Australians visiting the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey during 2010 is used to explore whether the experiences of those traveling to battlefields strongly associated with nation building legends and stories resemble those of diasporic tourists in seeking to return to their homeland. Emerging from the analysis, the confines of the blurred boundary between diaspora tourism and battlefield tourism is discussed in detail and an associated research agenda is proposed that aims to further clarify the scope of these concepts in relation to the broad spectrum of heritage tourism resources.

Checked baggage: spatial negotiations in contemporary air travel

This paper examines the act of undertaking international air travel and analyses how it forces individuals to consider a range of ideas as a result of dislocation and attempts to re-align themselves within spatial, material and biological structures. In order to balance the shifts between spatial and material experiences, travellers employ imaginative and perceptive procedures, gaining knowledge through experience. At the intersection of participatory and spatial boundaries through the lens of multi-disciplinary literature, this paper explores how practices of individuals within international air travel provides alternative modes of thinking and navigating through personal, cultural and globalised public spaces.

Web-based counseling for problem gambling: exploring motivations and recommendations

Background:

Global education: travel and new imaginaries for teachers' work

This book confirms that globalisation is reshaping educators’ work and lives towards a more global education. Understanding how teachers make meaning from and respond to travel revealed aspects of knowledge creation and identity formation. Set within contexts of globalisation, the study investigated global education through analysis of changing definitions and meanings by taking an historical stance. Teachers revealed that their study tour created new knowledge, teaching pedagogies and greater awareness of stereotypes both held and disclosed from students. The practices and thinking described by participants were consistent with calls for greater cosmopolitan teaching. A collection of ‘travel’ stories written by the author are included. The book sheds light on how teachers embed global imaginaries in their teaching. This in turn builds understanding around how globalisation is reshaping local contexts and individuals’ thinking and being. The findings challenge global education as a discrete framework and suggest teachers’ experiences as influential on education now in a global world.

Where do Children Travel to and What Local Opportunities Are Available? The Relationship Between Neighborhood Destinations and Children’s Independent Mobility

Associations between access to local destinations and children’s independent mobility (IM) were examined. In 2007, 10- to 12-year-olds (n = 1,480) and their parents (n = 1,314) completed a survey. Children marked on a map the destinations they walked or cycled to (n = 1,132), and the availability of local destinations was assessed using Geographic Information Systems. More independently mobile children traveled to local destinations than other children. The odds of IM more than halved in both boys and girls whose parents reported living on a busy road (boys, OR = 0.48; girls, OR = 0.36) and in boys who lived near shopping centers (OR = 0.18) or community services (OR = 0.25). Conversely, the odds of IM more than doubled in girls living in neighborhoods with well-connected low-traffic streets (OR = 2.32) and increased in boys with access to local recreational (OR = 1.67) and retail (OR = 1.42) destinations. Creating safe and accessible places and routes may facilitate children’s IM, partly by shaping parent’s and children’s feelings of safety while enhancing their confidence in the child’s ability to use active modes without an adult.

Motivations for doing interdisciplinary research: Results from an Australian qualitative study

While the literature provides a strong conceptual justification for Interdisciplinary Research (for example: Klein 1990, 1996; Sherif & Sherif, 1969) and a number of studies document the benefits and challenges of such studies (such as: Slatin, Galizzi, Melillo & Mawn 2004; Rhoten, 2004; Lynch 2006; Jacobs & Frickel 2009), there are surprisingly few empirical analyses of the reasons why individual researchers become involved in Interdisciplinary Research projects. Responding to this gap in the extant literature, the current study was undertaken to identify individual influences and motivations for participating in Interdisciplinary Research projects. In this paper we report findings that emerged from 30 interviews with researchers from a wide range of disciplines, as well as different stage of career, on the major reasons why they are drawn to Interdisciplinary Research. As part of the paper we also report the extent to which participants agreed or disagreed with a variety of pitfalls identified in the literature as potential impediments or deterrents to individuals becoming involved in Interdisciplinary studies.