Adverse Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Movement and Play Behaviours of Children and Youth Living with Disabilities: Findings from the National Physical Activity Measurement (NPAM) Study

All children and youth require ample physical activity (PA), low levels of sedentary behaviour (SB), and adequate sleep to stay healthy. Children and youth living with disabilities (CYWD) tend to have fewer opportunities for participation in PA and outdoor play compared with their typically developing peers. In turn, CYWD are typically less active and more sedentary, on average, compared with their peers. The COVID-19 pandemic reduced opportunities for many children and youth to participate in PA and outdoor play. The purpose of this study was to assess parent-perceived changes in PA (including outdoor play), SB (including screen time), and sleep quality and quantity, due to COVID-19 and related restrictions, in a national cohort of Canadian CYWD. We recruited parents of school-aged CYWD (N = 151) in May 2020. In an online survey, parents reported their child’s previous 7-day PA, SB, and sleep, as well as perceived changes in their child’s movement and play behaviours due to COVID-19 and related restrictions. Parent-perceived parental support for their child’s movement and play behaviours during the pandemic was also assessed. We used descriptive statistics to describe the child’s movement behaviours and assessed the association between movement behaviours and parental factors using Pearson and point-biserial correlations. Few (5.3%) CYWD met PA recommendations and 13.2% met screen time recommendations during the acute period of the COVID-19 pandemic. More CYWD (66.2%) were meeting sleep recommendations. Overall, only 1.3% of CYWD were meeting the combined movement guidelines. Parent encouragement was positively associated with the child’s outdoor PA (0.23), wheeling, walking, and biking (0.19), indoor PA (0.16), and family-based PA (0.26). Parental co-play was similarly positively associated with the child’s outdoor PA (0.26), wheeling, walking, and biking (0.39), indoor PA (0.16), and family-based PA (0.26). Parents perceived their CYWD to be less active and more sedentary as a result of COVID-19 and the related restrictions. Parents of CYWD have an important role in encouraging healthy movement behaviours. Return to movement and play post-COVID guidelines should include tailored strategies for CYWD and their families to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic.

How Does Ride-Hailing Influence Individual Mode Choice? An Examination Using Longitudinal Trip Data from the Seattle Region

This study investigates the impacts of ride-hailing, which we define as mobility services consisting of both conventional taxis and app-based services offered by transportation network companies, on individual mode choice. We examine whether ride-hailing substitutes for or complements travel by driving, public transit, or walking and biking. The study overcomes some of the limitations of convenience samples or cross-sectional surveys used in past research by employing a longitudinal dataset of individual travel behavior and socio-demographic information. The data include three waves of travel log data collected between 2012 and 2018 in transit-rich areas of the Seattle region. We conducted individual-level panel data modeling, estimating independently pooled models and fixed-effect models of average daily trip count and duration for each mode, while controlling for various factors that affect travel behavior. The results provide evidence of substitution effects of ride-hailing on driving. We found that cross-sectionally, participants who used more ride-hailing tended to drive less, and that longitudinally, an increase in ride-hailing usage was associated with fewer driving trips. No significant associations were found between ride-hailing and public transit usage or walking and biking. Based on detailed travel data of a large population in a major U.S. metropolitan area, the study highlights the value of collecting and analyzing longitudinal data to understand the impacts of new mobility services.

The Moderating Effect of Distance on Features of the Built Environment and Active School Transport

Despite growing research supporting the impact of the built environment on active school transport (AST), distance persists as the most powerful predictor of walking and biking to school. There is a need to better understand how environmental features interact with distance to affect AST, and whether the influence of environmental factors persist across different distance thresholds. Multilevel models using cluster-robust standard errors were used to examine for interactions between objectively measured macroscale environmental features and several reported distances from home to school (up to ¼, ¼ up to ½, ½ up to 1, 1+ miles) on the likelihood of parent reported AST for children grades 3–8 (n = 2751) at 35 schools who completed a Safe Routes to School Parent Survey about Walking and Biking to School (SRTS Parent Survey). An interaction between both intersection density and food-related land use with distance was observed. The likelihood of AST decreased as intersection density and distance increased (i.e., 31.0% reduced odds among those living within ¼ mile compared to 18.2% using ½–1-mile criterion). The likelihood of using AST were reduced as food-related land use and distance increased (i.e., 43.67% reduced odds among those living under ¼ mile compared to 19.83% reduced odds among those living ½–1 mile). Programs and infrastructure improvements focused on overcoming environmental barriers to promote AST may be most effective when targeting neighborhoods within ¼ mile of schools.

Does Adoption of Ridehailing Result in More Frequent Sustainable Mobility Choices? An Investigation Based on the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) 2017 Data

Among many changes potentially induced by the adoption of ridehailing, one key area of interest in transportation and urban planning research is how these services affect sustainable mobility choices, such as usage of public transit, walking, and biking modes and lower ownership of household vehicles. In this study, by using subsamples of the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) 2017 data, propensity score matching technique is applied to generate matched samples of ridehailing adopters and non-adopters from ten different core-based statistical areas in the U.S. Results from multivariable count data regression models built on the matched samples indicate that, on average, the count of public transit trips is greater for adopters compared against identical non-adopters in all ten areas. Regarding average counts of walking and biking trips, adopters tend to make more trips in most of the places, although a few exceptions are also found. However, the relationship between ridehailing adoption and count of household vehicles appears to be more complicated as adopters, on average, seem to have a lower or higher number of vehicles than identical non-adopters, depending on the area. One major limitation of this study is that, in the statistical analyses, effects of attitudinal and detailed geographic variables are not directly controlled for, which complicates causal interpretations of findings.