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Research Project: DEVELOPMENT AND PREVENTION OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Location: Children Nutrition Research Center (Houston, Tx)

Title: Validity of instruments to assess students' travel and pedestrian safety

Authors
item Mendoza, Jason -
item Kathy, Watson -
item Baranowski, Tom -
item Nicklas, Theresa -
item Uscanga, Doris -
item Hanfling, Marcus -

Submitted to: BioMed Central(BMC) Public Health
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: May 18, 2010
Publication Date: May 18, 2010
Repository URL: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-257.pdf
Citation: Mendoza, J.A., Kathy, W., Baranowski, T., Nicklas, T.A., Uscanga, D.K., Hanfling, M.J. 2010. Validity of instruments to assess students' travel and pedestrian safety. BioMed Central (BMC) Public Health. 10:257.

Interpretive Summary: Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Programs are designed to make walking and bicycling to school, safe and accessible for children. Few validated tools are available to evaluate SRTS programs; therefore, we validated the SRTS school travel survey and a pedestrian safety behavior checklist. The SRTS school travel survey had high reliability and validity. The pedestrian safety behavior checklist had moderate reliability across raters and correlation with the principal investigator’s ratings. These validated instruments can be used to assess SRTS programs.

Technical Abstract: Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are designed to make walking and bicycling to school,safe and accessible for children. Despite their growing popularity, few validated measures exist for assessing important outcomes such as type of student transport or pedestrian safety behaviors. This research validated the SRTS school travel survey and a pedestrian safety behavior checklist. Fourth grade students completed a brief written survey on how they got to school that day with set responses. Test-retest reliability was obtained 3-4 hours apart. Convergent validity of the SRTS travel survey was assessed by comparison to parents' report. For the measure of pedestrian safety behavior, 10 research assistants observed 29 students at a school intersection for completion of 8 selected pedestrian safety behaviors. Reliability was determined in two ways: correlations between the research assistants' ratings to that of the Principal Investigator (PI) and intraclass correlations (ICC) across research assistant ratings. The SRTS travel survey had high test-retest reliability (K = 0.97, n = 96, p < 0.001) and convergent validity (K = 0.87, n = 81, p < 0.001). The pedestrian safety behavior checklist had moderate reliability across research assistants' ratings (ICC = 0.48), and moderate correlation with the PI (r = 0.55, p =< 0.01). When two raters simultaneously used the instrument, the ICC increased to 0.65. Overall, percent agreement (91%), sensitivity (85%) and specificity (83%) were acceptable. These validated instruments can be used to assess SRTS programs. The pedestrian safety behavior checklist may benefit from further formative work.

   

 
Project Team
Upchurch, Dan
Thompson, Deborah - Debbe
 
Publications
   Publications
 
Related National Programs
  Human Nutrition (107)
 
Related Projects
   BEHAVIORAL PATHWAYS OF BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON ENERGY BALANCE
   PREVENTION OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY THROUGH LIFESTYLE CHANGES
   WEB-BASED AND MULTI-MEDIA INTERVENTIONS TO PROMOTE HEALTHY EATING AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN FAMILIES AND YOUTH
   DEVELOPMENT OF OBESITY-RELATED EATING BEHAVIORS IN CHILDHOOD
   UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGES FOR CHILDHOOD OBESITY PREVENTION
   PHYSICAL ACTIVITY INTERVENTIONS TO PREVENT CHILDHOOD OBESITY
   CHILDHOOD OBESITY RISK FACTOR CHARACTERIZATION
 
 
Last Modified: 06/19/2013
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