People who live near green spaces, such as parks, gain a boost to their health, researchers reported yesterday.
Dr Jolanda Maas of the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and colleagues explain that because of growing rates of city living, many people have little access to green spaces.
"There is increasing evidence for a positive relation between green space in people’s living environment and self-reported indicators of physical and mental health," they report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Their new study looks at health as assessed by doctors. They analysed medical records from 345,143 people, looking at different socioeconomic groups separately. These were based on education, work status and healthcare insurance type.
Living within in a one kilometre radius of a green space was significantly linked with reduced risk of 15 out of 24 "disease clusters" – cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders, mental ill health, respiratory disease, neurological disease, digestive disease, and miscellaneous complaints.
"The relation was strongest for anxiety disorder and depression," say the researchers. It was also stronger for children and people in lower socioeconomic groups, although the researchers did not have information on individual income.
"The relation was strongest in slightly urban areas and not apparent in very strongly urban areas," they add. "This study stresses the importance of green space close to home for children and lower socioeconomic groups."
However, the causes are still unclear. Some links are more plausible than others, they state, so "further research will have to shed more light on the mechanisms behind the relation between green space and health, and to what extent green space indeed plays a causal role in the observed relationships".
Maas, J. et al. Morbidity is related to a green living environment. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published online October 15, 2009.
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