Journeys of walking and cycling improve physical and mental health across the life course

Policy priorities and recommendations to increase active travel, drawn from research using longitudinal population study data.

This briefing provides evidence from research using longitudinal population study data, which finds that journeys of walking and cycling improve physical and mental health across the life course. It also draws out policy recommendations from this research to help maximise the uptake of active travel across generations.

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The UK’s Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines recommend that people of all ages engage in regular physical activity to improve their fitness levels and mental health, help contribute to a healthy weight, and reduce the risk of chronic health conditions such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

“Active travel provides a means for people to become more physically active and offers broader benefits for the community through improved air quality and reduced traffic congestion, as well as promoting environmentally-friendly behaviours more generally.

Longitudinal population studies provide valuable insights into many domains of people’s lives including the ways they travel, the determinants and barriers to active travel and how this interacts with environmental and policy changes.

These studies collect a wide range of data from hundreds of thousands of people across the UK throughout their lives. They allow for consideration of national and regional factors, enable comparisons across generations, and help to understand how patterns and habits change over people’s lives. Longitudinal population studies are therefore excellent resources in understanding how we can get more people to adopt active forms of travel.

Policy context

Active travel is a hot topic that has established a solid footing on the policy agenda. In June 2023, Active Travel England was appointed as a statutory consultee to guide planning authorities on how to support active travel in the design of larger housing developments. In the devolved regions, the transformation of active travel was debated in Holyrood, and the Welsh Government announced £58m of active travel funding. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is currently exploring the feasibility of the government achieving its ambitions for active travel in England.

MPs and Lords in the UK Parliament, as well as Members of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, have already expressed their interest in the evidence and insights longitudinal population studies offer. In Scotland, CLOSER’s briefing note was referenced in a Holyrood debate on how best to facilitate the active travel transformation.

Key findings

Benefits of active travel

• Active travel is associated with lower likelihoods of being overweight or obese, having diabetes, or hypertension.
• Longitudinal research demonstrates positive mental health benefits from active travel.
• Free bus passes are associated with an increase in public transport use and have benefits to cognitive function in older age.

Maximising the uptake of active travel

• Factors that promote greater levels of active travel include higher street connectivity or walkability in the local environment.
• Programmes and policies promoting sustainable active travel behaviours are likely to work best when aimed at those in early adulthood.
• The implementation of new infrastructure designed to support greater active travel has resulted in population-level increases in walking, cycling and physical activity.

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Credit: Roman Koester on Unsplash.