ABOUT PAYAMOS
Existing research-oriented projects use an academic style that is not understandable and usable by policy makers as well as by ordinary people. The process of translating results of these studies for not academic people takes time, and this makes transferred findings no more up to date.
Differently from other existing projects, PAYAMOS tries to make a link between stakeholders while cutting time between the production of first-hand scientific results and the simplification of these results for users in a non-academic language and style.
To do so, the project sets three main axes for knowledge production and for transferring outputs to end-users:
- Collection and analysis of primary data in the 7 targeted European countries, followed by the production of high-quality scientific outputs.
- Transferring of results to policymakers, municipalities, and schools in the 7 countries in an understandable and useful style in the shortest possible time in the form of written documents.
- Transferring of results to families and children in the 7 countries in an understandable and useful style in the shortest possible time in the form of oral presentation alongside related documents.
PAYAMOS aims to:
- Provide state-of-the-art research on the relationship between the mobility of children/adolescents/parents, their perceptions, Active Transportation to School (ATS), the built environment, the physical activity of the youth, as well as their body weight, fitness, and the analysis of the oxygen’s uptake by using an uniform method applied in 7 European countries.
- Produce consistent and reliable data generated uniformly in partner countries. This will facilitate understanding the differences concerning these issues in the 7 targeted European countries.
- Shorten the time needed for these results to be translated to a non-academic style and transferred to policymakers, planners, schools’ authorities, and to those who are supposed to enhance Active Transportation to School.
- Fill the gap between empirical academic studies on the above subjects and their end-users, namely families.
To do so, the project articulates in eight work packages (WPs)
Four of them are topical for the project:
WP3 consists of data collection for analyzing the relationship between ATS (active transportation to schools), physical activity, and body characteristics of different children 9-12 years old from the same schools in 2016 and 2020. To make a comparison between ATS and body weight of children in 2016 and today, a new survey in the same schools will be done in 2020. This would also make the research find significant differences in different European regions, such as the North, South, Southeast, etc.
WP4 consists of data collection for analyzing the ATS, physical activity, and fitness of adolescents. The target group will be adolescents of ages between 14 and 18 years of both genders. A sample of adolescents who agree to change their school mobility mode from motorized modes to active modes will be organized and then two surveys will be conducted, one in October 2020, and the other one in February 2021 (more methodological details can be found under F.2). The sample will be interviewed and their body weight and fitness will be measured in an interval of about 9-12 months after change of transport to school mode. The results of the two surveys (main and follow-up) will be compared and intellectual outputs will be generated. The surveys will be conducted in Krakow, Rotterdam, Thessaloniki, Sassari, Rijeka, and Malatya.
WP5 consists of preparing results and send them to policy makers in forms of small booklets written in a non-technical style. Booklets will summarize results from the two studies written in WP3 and WP4 so that they can implement recommendations and promote quickly physical activity of children and adolescents in their communities. The booklet will also have a special look at safe routes to schools and at the preparation of the urban form of active transportation to school.
In WP6 the awareness of families and their youth including children and adolescents will be raised. To do so, researches in WP3 (Children’s ATS and their body weight) and WP4 (Adolescents’ ATS and their fitness) will be shared with parents (the main target) and children in an understandable way by organizing a series of workshops and events in schools in the partner countries
The remaining four WPs are more general and aim at supporting the implementation of previous WPs:
This WP kicks off project activities before the kick-off meeting. Two committees have been envisaged for the project: Steering Committee (SC) and Dissemination Committee (DC). These two committees will help and advise the WP-leaders in fulfilling their tasks.
This WP includes the usual activities that are necessary for the implementation of the project done by the coordinator. Successful work on this WP will ease co-working of the consortium, so it will be attempted that the coordination takes place smoothly and in a friendly manner
It is aimed at making sure that activities of the project are fulfilled at their best possible quality.
The aim of WP8 is to make project’s results usable and accessible for ordinary people as well as other users like researchers, practitioners, and policymakers as outputs are designed to be open access.