Gamification of active travel to school: a pilot evaluation of the Beat the Street physical activity intervention

Coombes, Emma and Jones, Andrew (2016) Gamification of active travel to school: a pilot evaluation of the Beat the Street physical activity intervention. Health and Place, 39. pp. 62-69. ISSN 1353-8292

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Abstract

Beat the Street aims to get children more active by encouraging them to walk and cycle in their neighbourhood using tracking technology with a reward scheme. This pilot study evaluates the impact of Beat the Street on active travel to school in Norwich, UK. Eighty children 8-10 yrs were recruited via an intervention and control school. They wore an accelerometer for 7 days at baseline, mid-intervention and post-intervention (+20 weeks), and completed a travel diary. Physical activity overall was not higher at follow-up amongst intervention children compared to controls. However, there was a positive association between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school commute times and the number of days on which children touched a Beat the Street sensor. This equated to 3.46 mins extra daily MVPA during commute times for children who touched a sensor on 14.5 days (the mean number of days), compared to those who did not engage. We also found weekly active travel increased at the intervention school (+10.0% per child) while it decreased at the control (-7.0%), p=0.056. Further work is needed to understand how improved engagement with the intervention might impact outcomes.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	physical activity,active travel,school,children,gamification
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Epidemiology and Public Health Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (former - to 2023) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Health Promotion Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Public Health and Health Services Research (former - to 2023)
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	15 Mar 2016 15:00
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 04:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57491
DOI:	10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.03.001

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