, 2012, Bize et al., 2007 and Hamer and Stamatakis, 2010), and emotion and mood (Stathopoulou et al., 2006). Some studies Selleck NU7441 suggest a dose–response relationship (Dunn et al., 2005 and Hamer et al., 2009). This evidence is primarily drawn from studies examining associations with recreational physical activity, rather than more routine activities such as walking and cycling to work (‘active commuting’) (Mutrie and Faulkner, 2004). Qualitative research suggests that choice of travel mode may affect wellbeing (Guell and Ogilvie,

2013 and Hiscock et al., 2002) and the nature and intensity of active commuting (AC) may differ from that of recreational physical activity. For example, AC is often solitary and may be experienced as less enjoyable and more stressful than leisure activities. This study uses a validated self-report measure of health-related quality of life (SF-8) to explore the relationship between AC and physical and mental wellbeing in a sample of working adults. This analysis uses cross-sectional data from the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study, which has previously been described in detail in Ogilvie et al. (2010). The

study was set in the city of Cambridge, UK (approximate population: 108,000) and the surrounding area. Commuters aged 16 and over were recruited from multiple selleck compound workplaces in the city. Between May and October 2009, participants completed postal questionnaires covering their travel behaviour, physical activity and wellbeing. The Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee granted ethical approval and participants provided written informed already consent. Physical and mental wellbeing summary variables were derived from responses to the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form (SF-8). This comprises

eight ordinal response questions asking about participants’ physical and mental health in the last 4 weeks (general health, physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, vitality, social functioning, role emotional, and mental health). These were used to create physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) summary scores, which were then scaled to population norms using the methods described in Ware et al. (2001). Time spent actively commuting was derived using an instrument to record participants’ self-reported travel to and from work over the previous seven days (Panter et al., 2011) based on a measure shown to have acceptable test-retest reliability (Shannon et al., 2006). Although the exposure was assessed over a different time period (seven days) than that for the outcome (four weeks), the typical weekly cyclical pattern of AC probably makes a seven-day measure more accurate and less susceptible to recall bias. The distribution of AC was heavily skewed: many participants reported little or no time spent actively commuting.