In this study, Dr. Anna Timperio and colleagues investigated how parents' perceptions of their local neighborhood might be related to their child's walking and cycling behaviors. They surveyed 1,210 families with children (5 to 6 years old or 10 to 12 years old) from 19 state primary schools in high and low socioeconomic areas in Melbourne, Australia. With the collected data, Dr. Timperio and colleagues conducted multivariate analyses and found that a number of parental perceptions about the neighborhood were associated with children's walking or cycling patterns. For example, parental concern about road safety (e.g., lack of traffic lights or the number of roads that must be crossed) had a negative influence on children's walking and cycling. They also found that older children (10 to12 years old) who perceived that they had poor access to parks, cycled and walked less than other children. Interestingly, Dr. Timperio and colleagues found discrepancies between children's and parent's perceptions of their local neighborhood. Children, for example, were less concerned than their parents about heavy traffic, road safety, and strangers; however, parental perceptions were a bigger driver of children's behavior than children's perceptions.
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