Active travel could lower rates of disease

State and local government targets to get people out of cars and into more active transport would reduce heart disease and diabetes by tens of thousands of cases. University of Queensland researchers have evaluated Brisbane's active travel targets for 2026, which aim to achieve a split of 15 per cent for walking, five per cent for cycling and 14 per cent for public transport. School of Public Health PhD candidate Belen Zapata-Diomedi found there would be substantial health improvements if the targets were achieved. "In Australia, 57 per cent of adults do not meet national physical activity guidelines, but we found that investing in active travel is a feasible strategy for improving population health," she said. The study involved researchers from UQ, the University of Cambridge and QUT, and was conducted through the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy, Liveable and Equitable Communities. Findings showed 82 per cent of adults' weekday travel was by private car, but reducing that figure to 66 per cent would result in significant health benefits. "In effect, Brisbanites would enjoy about 33,000 cumulative healthy life years that they would not have otherwise, by lowering risks of diseases related to physical inactivity." Healthy life years are estimated as years of life lived adjusted for disease-related quality of life.