{"doi":"10.1186/s12966-024-01602-w","title":"Evaluation of a walking school bus program: a cluster randomized controlled trial","abstract":"BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a walking school bus intervention on children's active commuting to school. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Houston, Texas (Year 1) and Seattle, Washington (Years 2-4) from 2012 to 2016. The study had a two-arm, cluster randomized design comparing the intervention (walking school bus and education materials) to the control (education materials) over one school year October/November - May/June). Twenty-two schools that served lower income families participated. Outcomes included percentage of days students' active commuting to school (primary, measured via survey) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA, measured via accelerometry). Follow-up took place in May or June. We used linear mixed-effects models to estimate the association between the intervention and outcomes of interest. RESULTS: =9.2 (SD = 0.9) years; 46% female], 197 (47%) in the intervention group. The intervention group showed a significant increase compared with the control group over time in percentage of days active commuting (β = 9.04; 95% CI: 1.10, 16.98; p = 0.015) and MVPA minutes/day (β = 4.31; 95% CI: 0.70, 7.91; p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: These findings support implementation of walking school bus programs that are inclusive of school-age children from lower income families to support active commuting to school and improve physical activity. TRAIL REGISTRATION: This RCT is registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01626807).","journal":"International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity","year":2024,"id":450193,"datarank":0.24887359956734234,"base_score":1.6094379124341003,"endowment":1.6094379124341003,"self_citation_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citation_network_contribution":0.007457912702227259,"self_endowment_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citer_contribution":0.007457912702227259,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":3,"citers_with_citation_signal":1,"citers_with_endowment":1,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9404,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT01626807"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":369357,"name":"Chuan Zhou","orcid":"0000-0002-2919-3593","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":333637,"name":"Miriam J. Haviland","orcid":"0000-0003-3553-6561","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311552,"name":"Jason A. Mendoza","orcid":"0000-0003-0833-4358","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578485,"name":"Ashleigh M. Johnson","orcid":"0000-0001-6638-9352","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":52,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:02:25.004119Z","pmid":"38730407","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}