Exposure to Neighborhood Green Space and Mental Health: Evidence from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
By K. Beyer, Andrea Kaltenbach, A. Szabo, Sandra Bogar, F. J. Nieto, K. Malecki. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2014
793 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Green space is now widely viewed as a health-promoting characteristic of residential environments, and has been linked to mental health benefits such as recovery from mental fatigue and reduced stress, particularly through experimental work in environmental psychology. Few population level studies have examined the relationships between green space and mental health. Further, few studies have considered the role of green space in non-urban settings. This study contributes a population-level perspective from the United States to examine the relationship between environmental green space and mental health outcomes in a study area that includes a spectrum of urban to rural environments. Multivariate survey regression analyses examine the association between green space and mental health using the unique, population-based Survey of the Health of Wisconsin database. Analyses were adjusted for length of residence in the neighborhood to reduce the impact of neighborhood selection bias. Higher levels of neighborhood green space were associated with significantly lower levels of symptomology for depression, anxiety and stress, after controlling for a wide range of confounding factors. Results suggest that “greening” could be a potential population mental health improvement strategy in the United States.
Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/451f9c7ddca1d617e64287cf4979e5d2f68fbe99
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In Environmental Engineering
In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
- M. Triguero‐Mas
- W. Wendel-Vos
- Magdalena van den Berg
- M. Gascon
- Jolanda Maas
- H. Kemper
- M. Poppel
- M. Nieuwenhuijsen
In Plant Science
Citations in the corpus
- Mental Health Benefits of Long-Term Exposure to Residential Green and Blue Spaces: A Systematic Review (2015, methodology): “Author (Year, Country) Study Design Age of the Study Population (Stratifications/Interactions) N Tools to Measure Mental Health Mental Health Item Greenness Data Source Surrounding Greenness Indicator Risk of Mental Health Problems Adults (or population irrespective of age) Triguero-Mas et al. 2015,”
- Health benefits of green spaces in the living environment: A systematic review of epidemiological studies (2015, background): “3 shows seven studies reporting a significant positive association between quantity of green space in a buffer around the residence or in a small area and perceived mental health: five of them were judged as high-quality (Beyer et al., 2014; de Vries et al., 2003; Maas et al., 2009; Paquet et al., 2”
- A Review of the Health Benefits of Greenness (2015, neutral): “Other limitations included possible selection bias due to survey non-response [23, 59, 60, 66], instances of temporal misalignment between greenness and health measures [61], and coarse green space measures that did not capture smaller elements like gardens and trees [56].”