ScHARR led the commissioned research and produced three reports:
- Systematic review and narrative synthesis of the effectiveness of local interventions to promote cycling and walking for recreational and travel purposes. By Lindsay Blank, Roy Jones, Helen Buckley Woods and Nick Payne.
- Synthesis of evidence relating to barriers and facilitators to implementing interventions that promote cycling and walking, and to carrying out cycling and walking for recreational and travel purposes. By Maxine Johnson, Lindsay Blank, Roy Jones, Helen Buckley Woods and Nick Payne.
- Walking and cycling: local measures to promote walking and cycling as forms of travel or recreation: Health economic and modelling report. By Alan Brennan, Laurence Blake, Daniel Hill-McManus, Nick Payne, Helen Buckley Woods and Lindsay Blank.
Whilst contributing to the two reviews, HEDS led the modeling work and developed a de novo model - the ScHARR Walking and Cycling Model version 1.0. It is built around three components:
- The relationship between levels of walking and cycling, and overall physically activity. This allows direct evidence from studies of the effect of interventions on levels of walking and cycling to be converted into estimated changes on overall physical activity.
- The relationship between physical activity and relative risk of mortality. This allows transformation of physical activity level changes into life expectancy, numbers of deaths and quality adjusted life-years.
- The relationship between levels of walking and cycling, and travel, especially driving distance but also driving time and numbers of trips. This allows estimation of the effects of interventions that increase levels of walking and cycling on reduced kilometres driven and hence reduced congestion, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.
At the risk of oversimplifying months of hard work and a 186 page report, the modelling findings for those interventions identified by NICE ranged from £300 per QALY for TravelSmart to around £3,000 per QALY for a short-term 4-week pedometer intervention. Many other scenarios were also evaluated.
For further information on the modelling contact Alan Brennan, Laurence Blake or Daniel Hill-McManus.