Pilot Evaluation of a Walking School Bus Program

Sponsor

Seattle Children's Hospital (Other)

Overall Status

Completed

CT.gov ID

NCT00758615

Collaborator

(none)

149

Enrollment

Location

Arms

Duration (Months)

16.6

Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

Walking to school is one of the objectives for children and adolescents in Healthy People 2010 and in previous studies was associated with higher levels of overall physical activity, which has been shown to decrease obesity. Therefore, more children walking to school should result in increased physical activity and presumably reduce obesity. However, increasing child pedestrian activity could increase the risk of child pedestrian injuries. Walking with an adult who provides instruction in pedestrian skills and monitors the child's actual behavior may be the most important component of a successful intervention. Walking with an adult reduced child pedestrian injury risk by almost 70%. A walking school bus (WSB) addresses safety concerns by providing a period of physical activity supervised by several responsible adults and teaching opportunities around pedestrian safety skills on the way to and from school. Children may join the WSB at various points along the set route. Despite the growing popularity of WSB programs in the United States, randomized, controlled-studies are lacking that examine the impact on children's safety, physical activity, and health. We seek to help fill this gap in the literature by piloting a WSB program in elementary schools in the Houston Independent School District to test feasibility. We hypothesize that a WSB program will: (1) increase the number of students walking to school and decrease the number of students driven to school by car, (2) increase students' pedestrian safety behaviors (3) increase students' physical activity, and (4) decrease students' excess weight gain.

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Obesity Physical Activity Pedestrian Safety Injury Prevention	Behavioral: Walking School Bus	N/A

Study Design

Study Type:

Interventional

Actual Enrollment :

149 participants

Allocation:

Randomized

Intervention Model:

Parallel Assignment

Masking:

None (Open Label)

Primary Purpose:

Prevention

Official Title:

Pilot and Feasibility Evaluation of a Walking School Bus Program Intervention for Elementary School Students

Study Start Date :

Sep 1, 2008

Actual Primary Completion Date :

Jun 1, 2009

Actual Study Completion Date :

Jun 1, 2009

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Experimental: I Walking School Bus Intervention	Behavioral: Walking School Bus Students are chaperoned to and from school by adults (study staff or parent volunteers) along set routes. Other Names: Safe Routes to School
No Intervention: C Usual school procedures for student transportation to school

Arm

Intervention/Treatment

Experimental: I

Walking School Bus Intervention

Behavioral: Walking School Bus

Students are chaperoned to and from school by adults (study staff or parent volunteers) along set routes.

Other Names:

Safe Routes to School

No Intervention: C

Usual school procedures for student transportation to school

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

Method of student transportation to school [Immediately pre- and post-intervention]

Secondary Outcome Measures

Physical activity [Immediately pre- and post-intervention]
Physical activity objectively measured by accelerometers.
Pedestrian crosswalk behavior [Immediately pre- and post-intervention]
Parents' psychosocial constructs related to allowing their child to walk to school [Immediately pre- and post-intervention]
Child's self-efficacy for walking to school [Immediately pre- and post-intervention]