Encouraging young people’s active and sustainable travel through a school-based intervention: the Julkine trial

Julkine contributes to finding ways to combat two major problems faced by societies around the world: low physical activity and unsustainable transport. The mixed-methods cluster-randomized controlled trial is testing a programme designed to promote active and sustainable travel among young people.
Encouraging young people’s active and sustainable travel through a school-based intervention: the Julkine trial
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The Julkine trial, which is registered at the ISRCTN registry, is underway. The trial involves a multi-component city-level intervention to increase physical activity via sustainable and active travel modes such as cycling or walking, and public transportation. The target group is young people aged 13–15 who live in two towns in South-Eastern Finland.

We use multiple methods to discover whether the participants subject to the intervention differ from the control groups in outcomes such as daily physical activity and to evaluate the intervention process.

Why is the Julkine trial important?

The concern over young people’s health and lack of physical activity is growing–with good reason. In Finland, this year’s results from a national physical functional capacity monitoring and feedback system, Move!, show that as many as forty per cent of eighth graders have their capacity at a level that possibly negatively impacts or harms their health and well-being (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2024). The results also show young people from rural areas have significantly lower physical functioning capacity than urban youth. This lack of physical activity will likely significantly impact their health in later years and potentially increase their usage of an already overburdened healthcare sector.

By focusing on young people’s daily travel, our study contributes to finding ways to combat two major problems faced by societies around the world. In addition to the problem of the low amount of daily physical activity, the world desperately needs to reduce unsustainable transportation methods, such as private car use. Increasing the modal share of active travel would be ideal for addressing both these issues.

Numerous policy efforts to increase sustainable travel have had limited success. Some policies may even act against active travel, especially outside of larger urban areas. The centralisation of services such as schools can make distances too far to walk or cycle, and sparse public transport coverage can make private motor vehicles the only reasonable mode choice. For these and many other reasons, unsustainable and inactive travel practices continue to supersede active travel in the everyday lives of too many young people.

What is the trial?

Our study is an interventional cluster-randomized controlled trial lasting eight months. We test a programme designed to promote active commutes among adolescents aged 13–15 who live in two towns in rural areas in Finland. The goal of this school year-long programme is to increase the number of trips adolescents make using active travel modes and public transportation and boost their overall daily physical activity.

We have recruited the participants through eight schools. We paired the schools based on their comparative public transport accessibility. Then, we randomised them into intervention and control schools.

Both the intervention and control groups participate in activity and survey measurements twice: at the baseline and the end. We measure their daily physical activity with a thigh-worn accelerometer that they wear continuously for one week. The participants also complete a map-based participatory mapping survey about their travel habits.

The primary aim is to find out whether participants in the intervention group will travel more actively and use more sustainable travel modes, and have a heightened moderate-to-vigorous physical activity level, as compared to those in the control group.

Furthermore, we analyse various qualitative data, gathered among the intervention group, to trace changes in travel practices and to evaluate our intervention measures.

What is the intervention?

The intervention is based on viewing travel modes as social practices. Accordingly, we aim to make active travel more appealing and accessible in the participants’ everyday situations. We also need to find ways to make their current travel practices more active. This takes the form of various kinds of support; we focus on knowledge and skills, meanings and norms, and material prerequisites.

The researchers deliver the intervention, which mainly occurs during school days, within one school year. Our intervention consists of five components, and we will adjust the details in cooperation with the school staff.

First, we organise active travel workshops. These workshops include information, guidance, and group tasks related to the health and environmental effects, meanings, and prerequisites of active travel. We also hold a bike maintenance workshop. By this component, we try to enhance positive meanings and attitudes, knowledge and skills, as well as social support related to active travel. 

The second component is the information campaign. We send monthly short video messages to the young people and newsletters to their parents. The main goal is to enhance young people’s knowledge of active and sustainable travel and to gain parental support for these themes. Third, the participants learn how to calculate their own carbon footprint by using a mobile application or web-based calculators. The aim is for the participants to understand the impact of different modes of transportation on their carbon footprint and that their choices can affect its size. The fourth component involves familiarising young people with hybrid travel–combined bus travel and walking or cycling–and its benefits and enhancing their ability to recognise their everyday possibilities for hybrid travel.

The last component is the youth travel panel. First, young people’s experiences of travelling in their neighbourhoods are gathered, for instance, via an online participatory mapping survey and pictures and videos taken by the young people. After that, the panel discusses these trips and notes their risks and development opportunities.

The control group will receive a narrowed version of the intervention, and the schools will receive the materials for their own use after the final measurements are conducted.

What do we want to find out?

Our main goal is to test and find ways to promote active and sustainable travel among youth. We expect our study to provide valuable insights into young people’s everyday mobility and the factors that influence it. We expect this intervention to support young people’s active travel mode use, functional, active travel trip-chaining (bike + public transport), and, at best, alternate the share of ridership in private vehicles and increase physical activity levels.

These results strengthen the scientific evidence base on the multilevel effects on people’s active and sustainable travel mode use and physical activity. Furthermore, we expect these results to broaden the current scientific and practical intervention practices, which often rely on single-level strategies and often target solely the individual. The information is likely useful for several policy sectors, including transportation planning and physical activity-related services in cities and rural areas. 

Who is funding and conducting the study?

Funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the study is conducted by the Active Life Lab at the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the Department of Built Environment at Aalto University.

Reference:

Finnish National Agency for Education, 2024. Move! Fyysisen toimintakyvyn seurantajärjestelmä. Tulokset syksy 2024. Koko maa. [Move! Monitoring system for physical functional capacity. Results autumn 2024. Whole country.] Available in Finnish and Swedish: https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/Kokomaa_helalandet_move2024.pdf

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  • ISRCTN registry ISRCTN registry

    A primary clinical trial registry recognised by WHO and ICMJE that accepts studies involving human subjects or populations with outcome measures assessing effects on human health and well-being, including studies in healthcare, social care, education, workplace safety and economic development.