ScholarlyCommons

Title

Fears of Violence During Morning Travel to School

Author(s)

Douglas Wiebe, University PennsylvaniaFollow
Wensheng Guo, University of PennsylvaniaFollow
Paul D Allison
Elijah Anderson
Therese S. Richmond, University of PennsylvaniaFollow
Charles Branas, University of PennsylvaniaFollow

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of this Version

7-1-2013

Publication Source

The Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume

53

Issue

1

Start Page

54

Last Page

61

DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.01.023

Abstract

PURPOSE: Children's safety as they travel to school is a concern nationwide. We investigated how safe children felt from the risk of being assaulted during morning travel to school.

METHODS: Children between 10 and 18 years old were recruited in Philadelphia and interviewed with the aid of geographic information system (GIS) mapping software about a recent trip to school, situational characteristics, and how safe they felt as they travelled based on a 10-point item (1 = very unsafe, 10 = very safe). Ordinal regression was used to estimate the probability of perceiving different levels of safety based on transportation mode, companion type, and neighborhood characteristics.

RESULTS: Among 65 randomly selected subjects, routes to school ranged from 7 to 177 minutes (median = 36) and .1-15.1 street miles (median = 1.9), and included between 1-5 transportation modes (median = 2). Among students interviewed, 58.5% felt less than very safe (i.e.,8, for example, was .99 while in a car and .94 while on foot but was .86 and .87 when on a public bus or trolley. Probability was .98 while with an adult but was .72 while with another child and .71 when alone. Also, perceived safety was lower in areas of high crime and high density of off-premise alcohol outlets.

CONCLUSIONS: Efforts that target situational risk factors are warranted to help children feel safe over their entire travel routes to school.

Copyright/Permission Statement

© 2013. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

Adolescent, Child, Fear, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Male, Philadelphia, Safety, Schools, Students, Transportation, Violence

Recommended Citation

Wiebe, D., Guo, W., Allison, P., Anderson, E., Richmond, T. S., & Branas, C. (2013). Fears of Violence During Morning Travel to School. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 53 (1), 54-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.01.023