প্রকাশ: 29/12/2021
As many countries ease their lockdowns and more people
return to work, there’s an effort to limit the use of public transport to avoid
further spread of COVID-19. It seems obvious that we should encourage more
people to switch to physically active ways of commuting such as walking or
cycling where possible, instead of clogging up the roads with more polluting
cars.
But active commuting won’t just help limit virus
transmission and emissions. Our latest research found that people who walk and
cycle to work are at lower risk of death or serious illness compared with those
who commute by car.
It’s well established that many people don’t get enough
physical activity, and this has been linked to between 3.2 million and 5.3
million deaths a year worldwide. And we know that being physically active leads
to many health benefits, including lower risk of heart disease, type 2
diabetes, some cancers and even depression.
An active commute is a major potential source of daily
physical activity, which can also include planned exercise and even household
activities such as cleaning. But in England and Wales, around 34% of men and
42% of women aren’t active enough, and walking and cycling rates have been
declining for four decades. Motor vehicles have also become the most common way
to get to work.
Our team used census data from over 300,000 commuters in
England and Wales to investigate the health impacts of walking, cycling,
getting public transport or driving to work. We followed participants for up to
25 years in order to compare deaths from cardiovascular disease (including
heart attack and stroke) and cancer, as well as new diagnoses of cancer.
Health benefits
We found that, compared with those who drove, people who
cycled to work had a 20% lower risk of death overall. They also had a 24% lower
risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 16% lower risk of dying from
cancer. And they were 11% less likely to be diagnosed with cancer. This even
held true after we took account of other factors, such as age, sex, car access,
ethnicity and socioeconomic group.
Walking to work was associated with a 7% lower risk of
cancer diagnosis compared with driving. However, it was unclear what impact
walking to work had on rates of death from cancer and heart disease.
This may be because the people we looked at who walked to
work were on average less well-off and were more likely to have a long-term
illness and this may have countered the positive effects of walking. However,
the data may not have had enough detail to fully capture these differences.
We also found that, compared with those who drove to work,
rail commuters also had a 10% lower risk of death overall. They had a 21% lower
risk of death from cardiovascular disease, and a 12% lower risk of being
diagnosed with cancer. This is likely because many rail commuters need to walk
or cycle to transit points.
Again our data showed that rail commuters also tend to be better
off and less likely to have other underlying health conditions, which might not
be fully accounted for in the analyses.
Our research also looked at whether the benefits of active
commuting differed between occupations, comparing those in higher managerial or
professional positions in more junior or intermediate roles, as well as people
who worked manual jobs. We found that the potential health benefits were
similar across these groups.
We know that there are inequalities in health and travel
patterns between socioeconomic groups. Our study indicates that promoting
active travel might lead to positive health benefits regardless of background
or occupation.
While many people cannot walk or cycle their entire commute,
incorporating some active travel into their journey may be beneficial. Many
public transport journeys have also been shown to include some walking and
cycling, and its use is associated with lower body fat.
In the UK, as in other countries around the world, the
government has been broadly in support of active travel as people starting
returning to work. If this leads to long-term reductions in commuting by car,
it could reduce the high levels of physical inactivity among adults and improve
general health. And it may even lead to other benefits, such as improved air
quality.
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