Children’s Independent Mobility: Current Knowledge, Future Directions, and Public Health Implications

Environmental changes significantly impact health behavior. Active travel behavior is mostly affected by increasing motorization, urban sprawl, and traffic safety. Especially for children, active and independent travel can contribute to physical activity, social and motor development, and other health-related outcomes. A reduced number of children engaging in independent mobility over the last 20 years demanded researchers to further examine the construct of children’s independent mobility. By examining relevant literature, this narrative review aims to provide the current state of knowledge on children’s independent mobility, and identify future directions in research, as well as practical implications. From a public health perspective, considering children’s independent mobility in intervention programs is recommended, since it is associated with numerous health and environmental benefits. To develop interventions, multilevel socio-ecological influences on children’s independent mobility are widely examined; however, evidence is limited due to heterogeneous measurements and a lack of high-quality prospective studies. To oppose the decline in children’s independent mobility, further analysis using comparable measures is needed to understand the determinants of children’s independent mobility and to enable international comparison.