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Adolescents’ fears of violence in transit environments during daily activities

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Abstract

We investigated children’s perceived safety from assault risk while in different transportation modes. Children 10–18 years old were interviewed in Philadelphia, PA, USA, using a Geographic Information System (GIS) interface, reporting how safe they felt using a 10-point item (1=very unsafe, 10=very safe) during recent daily activities. Results show that among 153 subjects, 75.8 per cent felt less than very safe (that is, <10) at some point while travelling. Perceived safety was higher during nighttime, when the probability of reporting a safety of >8, for example, was 0.84 while in a car and 0.84 on a bus, but 0.66 on foot and 0.40 on a subway (P<0.05). Targeting transportation environment-related factors is warranted to help children feel safe during daily activities.

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Acknowledgements

Funded by grants R01AA014944 and K02AA017974 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, 19104, PA, USA

    Douglas J Wiebe, Wensheng Guo & Charles C Branas

  2. Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, PA, USA

    Therese S Richmond

  3. Department of City and Regional Planning, School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, PA, USA

    Jed Poster

  4. Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, PA, USA

    Paul D Allison

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  1. Douglas J Wiebe
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  2. Therese S Richmond
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  3. Jed Poster
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  4. Wensheng Guo
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  5. Paul D Allison
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  6. Charles C Branas
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Wiebe, D., Richmond, T., Poster, J. et al. Adolescents’ fears of violence in transit environments during daily activities. Secur J 27, 226–241 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2014.8

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