Built environment predictors of walking to school in a sprawled city

Walking to school may provide a regular source of daily physical activity and help to reduce the prevalence of obesity, but walking has been on the decline for decades globally; this is particularly true in Saudi Arabia, especially with the major increase in auto-dependency. This cross-sectional study of students aged 6–18 from 57 schools collected 1218 responses to examine the potential associations between the built environment and walking to school in a sprawled city, namely Najran city, Saudi Arabia. Binomial logistic regression was used to highlight important built environment predictors of walking to school. The results showed that across all participating schools, the average proportion of students walking to school was 19%. Also, the findings of the study further revealed that several built environment attributes were associated with walking to school. Walking to school was positively associated with signalized intersections, distance to the central business district (CBD), increased commercial land use, the precence of a parking lot in front of the school and denser areas within the school neighborhood. However, walking to school is also negatively associated with commuting distance, the presence of industrial use, and the presence of hilly streets in school neighborhood. No significant correlations were found between walking to school and the population density of the individual student’s home neighborhood or the number of intersections, parks, streets, and speed bumps in the school neighborhood. Overall, the findings of this study can be used to guide and support the development of new policies to improve pedestrian infrastructure and establish new, smaller schools within some neighborhoods to increase active and safe commuting to schools in Najran city, Saudi Arabia.