- According to a new survey-based study on a population from the United Kingdom, constraints on travel outside of one’s local area are associated with poorer self-reported health.
- In contrast, people who travel away from their home location report experiencing better health.
- One reason might be that when a person is unable to travel, they also have fewer social interactions, which may contribute to loneliness.
- The study focuses on the North of England, an area with poorer health outcomes than the rest of England, and limited transportation services outside of large urban areas.
A new, survey-based study conducted by researchers at University College London’s Centre for Transport Studies, in the United Kingdom, shows how people feel that travel — and barriers to travel — impact their health.
The study finds that people who face constraints on their ability to travel outside their local area, or to as many places as they would like, report poorer health, whereas those who are able to travel away from home feel that they experience better health.
Its findings appear in the Journal of Transport & Health.
The researchers received funding from the U.K. transport body Transport for the North for their study.How the study proceeded
The study defined traveling outside one’s local area as traveling 15 miles, or 24 kilometers, away from home.
The study authors analyzed responses from 2,747 residents from the North of England regarding their health and the constraints to travel that they face.
This area of England has the nation’s worst health outcomes, according to the researchers, and many of its areas lack adequate transportation facilities.
The survey respondents were asked to report their level of agreement or disagreement with five questions, each of which focused on a specific travel constraint:
- “I travel beyond my local area less often than I would ideally like to” — a travel frequency constraint
- “I travel to fewer places (e.g., cities or towns outside my local area) than I would ideally like to” — a constraint on the number of places traveled
- “I travel to places that are nearer than the ones I would ideally like to go” — a travel distance constraint
- “I travel by public transport to places I would ideally like to go by car” — a travel-by-car constraint
- “I travel by car to places I would ideally like to go by public transport” — a constraint on access to public transportation.
Based on the survey responses, the authors concluded that individuals who were able to travel at least 15 miles away from home, and who were able to travel frequently and see more places were more likely to report better health.
The associations between travel and state of health were more significant in respondents aged 55 years and over.According to lead author Dr. Paulo Anciaes, previous research has established that the ability to travel can increase access to employment and educational opportunities. He hoped to investigate, for the first time, the effect of travel on health.
He told Medical News Today that the North of England was chosen as the area of study because it lags behind the rest of the country. “The government has, as one of its main priorities, the ‘leveling up‘ of the North and other lagging regions,” he said.
“The health outcomes are consistently worse [in the North] than in the South,” Dr. Anciaes noted, “and statistics and studies suggest that this is mainly explained by the lower incomes. Our study tried to uncover other possible reasons. We found that the ability to travel is one of them.”
To assess the effect of travel on health, Dr. Anciaes and his co-author, Dr. Paul Metcalfe, employed a technique called “path analysis” that made it possible for them to observe the direct and indirect effects of one variable on another.
The researchers found that when people were limited in the number of places they could go, the lack of opportunities for social interaction was directly linked to poorer health.
On the other hand, constrained travel frequency negatively affected health less directly. That is, he said, “travel constraints are significantly related to social participation, and social participation is then significantly related to self-reported health.”
Traveling outside one’s local area can also have a direct effect on health quality, in that it may allow people to access more, and perhaps better, healthcare options than might be available closer to home
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