Active transportation to school for children and adolescents from Brazil: a systematic review

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the use of active transportation to school (ATS) for Brazilian children and adolescents through a systematic review. This review was carried out from February to March of 2018 by using databases from the area, governmental policies and research and by contacting researchers from this area. The databases used were: LILACS; BIREME; SCIELO; MEDLINE and SCOPUS. The search was performed in articles published from January 2007 to December 2017. The inclusion criteria were: original articles published in journals; articles that measured ATS; articles that evaluated Brazilian children and/or adolescents with ages ranging between 0 and 19 years of age, without specific clinical conditions, without diagnoses of diseases and non-athletes. Overall, 19 articles were selected for this study. Only 8 presented ATS values for gender, with boys and girls using ATS similarly, 4 for each gender. Regarding regions, 11 studies presented data from the Southern regions, 3 studies presented data from the Southeastern region, 3 from the Northeastern region and 2 studies presented data from Brazil as a whole. The Northern and Midwestern regions were not studied in any of the articles. Based on the results, the prevalence of ATS for children and adolescents varies according to the studies and regions in Brazil. Authorities should be encouraged to build monitoring systems for ATS to support planning and evaluation of public policies.