Green Space and Stress: Evidence from Cortisol Measures in Deprived Urban Communities

By Jenny Roe, C. Thompson, P. Aspinall, M. Brewer, E. Duff, David Miller, Richard Mitchell, A. Clow. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2013

630 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Contact with green space in the environment has been associated with mental health benefits, but the mechanism underpinning this association is not clear. This study extends an earlier exploratory study showing that more green space in deprived urban neighbourhoods in Scotland is linked to lower levels of perceived stress and improved physiological stress as measured by diurnal patterns of cortisol secretion. Salivary cortisol concentrations were measured at 3, 6 and 9 h post awakening over two consecutive weekdays, together with measures of perceived stress. Participants (n = 106) were men and women not in work aged between 35–55 years, resident in socially disadvantaged districts from the same Scottish, UK, urban context as the earlier study. Results from linear regression analyses showed a significant and negative relationship between higher green space levels and stress levels, indicating living in areas with a higher percentage of green space is associated with lower stress, confirming the earlier study findings. This study further extends the findings by showing significant gender differences in stress patterns by levels of green space, with women in lower green space areas showing higher levels of stress. A significant interaction effect between gender and percentage green space on mean cortisol concentrations showed a positive effect of higher green space in relation to cortisol measures in women, but not in men. Higher levels of neighbourhood green space were associated with healthier mean cortisol levels in women whilst also attenuating higher cortisol levels in men. We conclude that higher levels of green space in residential neighbourhoods, for this deprived urban population of middle-aged men and women not in work, are linked with lower perceived stress and a steeper (healthier) diurnal cortisol decline. However, overall patterns and levels of cortisol secretion in men and women were differentially related to neighbourhood green space and warrant further investigation.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/efe00c8f09b29434c86608767de1f84adcb48c41

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Citations in the corpus

Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development Is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education (2019, background): “Exposure to green spaces has also been found to reduce biomarkers of stress and to increase health and well-being (Roe et al., 2013; Thompson et al., 2012; Twohig-Bennett & Jones, 2018).”
A dose-response curve describing the relationship between tree cover density and landscape preference (2015, result): “Those two studies and several prior studies suggest that environments with higher tree cover density can produce greater stress reduction (Beil & Hanes, 2013; Roe et al., 2013; Tyrvainen et al., 2014; van den Berg, Hartig, & Staats, 2007; Ward Thompson et al., 2012).”
Exploring pathways linking greenspace to health: Theoretical and methodological guidance (2017, background): “Moreover, some observational studies have found evidence to support the potential role of greenspace in buffering or reducing stress (van den Berg et al., 2010; Roe et al., 2013; Stigsdotter et al., 2010; Ward Thompson et al., 2012).”
A dose of nature: Tree cover, stress reduction, and gender differences (2014, background): “…responses associated with various kinds of landscapes and have generally found that, in urban areas, the higher the level of vegetation, the greater the stress reduction (e.g., Alvarsson, Wiens, & Nilsson, 2010; Beil & Hanes, 2013; Lee et al., 2009; Roe et al., 2013; Ward Thompson et al., 2012).”
A Dose-Response Curve Describing the Relationship Between Urban Tree Cover Density and Self-Reported Stress Recovery (2016, result): “In another study, residents living in greener environments reported lower levels of stress and had cortisol levels that were consistent with their assessments (Roe et al., 2013; Ward Thompson et al., 2012).”
Nature Contact and Human Health: A Research Agenda (2017, methodology): “These measures include stress indicators such as cortisol, amylase, and skin conductance (Beil and Hanes 2013; Jiang et al. 2014; JJ Roe et al. 2013); measures of brain activity including novel EEG methods (Aspinall et al. 2015; J Roe et al. 2013; Tilley et al. 2017) and functional brain imaging…”
Exposure to Neighborhood Green Space and Mental Health: Evidence from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (2014, positive): “Recent research has linked green space directly to biomarkers of stress and attention—diurnal variation of salivary cortisol [8,10] and brain waves as measured by portable EEG devices [9,31]—suggesting a biologically plausible link between exposure to green space and reduction of stress and mental f”
Mental Health Benefits of Long-Term Exposure to Residential Green and Blue Spaces: A Systematic Review (2015, background): “Some studies included in the present review observed that the health benefits of green spaces could be modified by these variables [18,19,25,28,34,37].”