BICYCLE NETWORK, 8 APRIL 2020
This article has been reproduced with the permission of Bicycle Network.
Study finds commuters live longer
People who ride
their bike to work have a lower risk of dying, a recent study from New Zealand has
found.
Commuters who biked to work had a 13 per cent reduction in mortality during the
study, attributed to the health benefits of physical activity.
The researchers used data from the New Zealand Census Mortality Study, which
links census and mortality records, to do follow-up studies of the population
for three to five years following the 1996, 2001 and 2006 censuses.
The study, by researchers from the University of Otago, Wellington, the
University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland, has just been published
in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
It also found that there was no reduction in mortality for those who walked or
took public transport to work.
Lead researcher Dr Caroline Shaw, from the Department of Public Health at the
University of Otago, said the study analysed data from 3.5 million New
Zealanders and is one of the largest ever cohort studies to examine the
association between mode of travel to work and mortality outcomes.
“We studied 80 per cent of the working-age population of New Zealand over a
15-year period, so it is highly representative,” she said.
Dr Shaw said increasing ‘active transport’ is being promoted as a way of
addressing health and environmental issues, but the association between
different modes of transport, such as cycling, walking and public transport,
and health outcomes has remained unclear.
The study found more than 80 per cent of people in New Zealand travelled to
work by car on census day, with only five per cent walking and three per cent
cycling.
“There were gender differences in mode of travel to work, with two per cent of
women cycling compared with four per cent of men, but more women walking or
jogging (seven per cent), compared with men (five per cent). A higher
proportion of younger people cycled, walked or took public transport compared
with older people.”
Dr Shaw says the census data provided no details about the physical intensity
of the commute, so those who lived in the inner city and walked 200 metres to
work were in the same category as those who walked briskly up and down a hill
for 30 minutes to get to and from work.
“We saw no increase in road traffic injury deaths associated with walking and
cycling, although the New Zealand transport system at the time of these studies
was heavily car-dominated and roads seldom made allowances for pedestrians and
cyclists.”
Dr Shaw says the findings lend support for initiatives to increase the number
of people commuting to work by bike.
“Increasing cycling for commuting to work in a country with low levels of
cycling like New Zealand will require policies directed at both transport and
urban planning, such as increasing housing density and implementing cycling
networks.”
While the study found no association between walking or taking public transport
to work and a reduction in mortality, Dr Shaw says there are other reasons to
promote these modes of transport.
“Walking to work has physical-activity-related health benefits other than
mortality reduction – including the prevention of cardiovascular disease and
diabetes – and taking public transport has the benefit of emitting less
carbon.”
Coming from the latest Royal Auto magazine.
The cyclists as a proportion of all vehicles coming into Melbourne’s CBD in the morning peak.
2007, 6.4% which was 4390 cyclists
2013, 11.5% which was 7696 cyclists
2019, 17.1% which is 10,427 cyclists
Hopefully this will bode well for our environment and our long term health.
