Road safety behavior among primary students in non-central business districts of Shanghai

Objective To investigate road safety behavior and associated risk factors among primary students.Methods A stratified cluster sampling method was used to select 2 756 primary students in grade 3 to 5 from 16 schools located at non-central business districts of Shanghai.Questionnaire survey was carried out in September 2016 regarding demographic information and road safety behaviors.Results The proportion of walking as daily routine and walking to school was 26.40% and 31.03% respectively.In the past 30 days,the overall incidence of unsafe road behaviors was 67.31%.The proportion of "not wearing reflective clothing travel at night","not using pedestrian crossing","use of mobile phone while walking","running the red light","jaywalking" and "climbing up the safety fence" was 50.76% 25.69%,22.15%,17.09%,16.14% and 7.66% respectively.Boys was higher than girls reporting climbing up the safety fence,while girls reported higher in "not wearing reflective clothing travel at night".Reporting rates in "not using pedestrian crossing" and "walking while using mobile phone" increased with grade,but no similar trend was found in "not wearing reflective clothing travel at night".Conclusion The use of mobile phone while walking is become an emerging problem.Interventions should be carried out on the basis of comprehensive understanding current road safety behaviors among primary school students,especially among boys.The road safety awareness and related behaviors among children,as well as their parents needs to be improved.The difference was statistically significant(P<0.05).