Work

Associations of school neighbourhood built environment profiles with active commuting behaviour in Spanish adolescents

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Objective To investigate whether school neighbourhood built environment (SNBE) profiles are associated with adolescents' active commuting to/from school (ACS) and related outcomes (i.e., basic psychosocial needs, motivation, and barriers). Methods A total of 311 adolescents (14.36 ± 0.63 years; 54.34% girls) self-reported ACS-related outcomes. The SNBE was assessed at both the macro- and micro-scale . Principal component analysis followed by hierarchical clustering was applied to classify schools into different macro-scale and micro-scale profiles. Multilevel linear mixed-effects models and multilevel logistic regression models were conducted to examine the associations between ACS and related outcomes and macro- and micro-scale environment profiles. Results At the macro-scale level, no significant associations were observed between SNBE profiles and ACS-related behavioural or psychosocial outcomes. Similarly, no significant independent associations were observed for micro-scale environments. However, a non-significant tendency towards higher odds of active commuting from school was observed in high-support micro-scale environments (OR = 2.60; p = 0.069). On the other hand, when both environmental scales were considered jointly, adolescents attending schools in green and walkable macro-scale and high-support micro-scale environments reported lower planning/psychosocial barriers (β = −0.50; p = 0.004), as well as higher intrinsic (β = 0.75; p = 0.038) and integrated motivation (β = 1.10; p = 0.002). In addition, these combined environments were associated with greater odds of actively commuting to school (OR = 7.31; p = 0.012), while a non-significant tendency was observed for commuting from school (OR = 4.75; p = 0.098). Conclusion This study suggests that independent associations of macro- and micro-scale school neighbourhood environments with adolescents' ACS and related outcomes were limited. However, the combined presence of favourable macro- and micro-scale environments was associated with lower planning/psychosocial barriers, higher autonomous motivation, and greater odds of ACS.

Source: Cities

DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2026.107431