Residents of cities with more green space have better mental health

Living in a large city with larger green spaces, such as parks, public squares and gardens, can be beneficial for mental health. A new study has shown that residents of urban areas who are more exposed to green spaces have better mental well-being.

The study was published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in early February and showed that the greater the exposure to urban green areas, the less the need for mental health services, such as consultations with psychiatrists and treatments for mental disorders.

To reach this conclusion, researchers from the School of Public Health of Texas A&M University used a tool called NatureScore, which uses multiple datasets related to air, noise and light pollution, park presence and tree canopy to calculate the quantity and quality of natural elements for any known address in the United States and other countries around the world.

NatureScore assesses the quality of exposure to nature according to the following score:

• Disabled: 0 to 19 points;
• Light: 20 to 40 points;
• Adequate: 40 to 60 points;
• Rich: 60 to 80 points;
• Utopian: 80 to 100 points.

“The association between exposure to nature and better mental health is well established in the United States and elsewhere, but most studies use only one or two measurements of this exposure,” said Jay Maddock, one of the study's authors in a statement. the press. “Our study was the first to use the NatureScorewhich provides more complex data, to study the correlation between exposure to urban nature and mental health”

The researchers also used data on mental health visits contained in Texas Hospital's public outpatient data files from 2014 to 2019. They included information such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, employment and socioeconomic status, diagnosis and Patient's zip code. Still, the identity of the patients was not disclosed.

A total of 61,391,400 adult outpatient visits in Texas cities for depression, bipolar disorders, stress and anxiety were selected. Additionally, the research included data from 1,169 addresses in urban Texas, whose average rating was NatureScore it was 85.8 points. Half of the CEPs had high scores (above 80 points) and around 22% had scores below 40 points.

Study results

According to the study, the higher the score of a neighborhood in the NatureScore, the lower the tendency for residents to make outpatient appointments due to mental health. According to the results, medical consultation rates were 50% lower in neighborhoods with a score above 60 points, compared to neighborhoods that have a lower score.

“We discovered that a NatureScore above 40 – considered adequate – appears to be the threshold for good mental health,” said Maddock. “People in these neighborhoods are 51% less likely to develop depression and 63% less likely to develop bipolar disorders.”

For Omar M. Makram, lead author of the study, these findings could have important implications for urban planning.

“Increasing green spaces in cities could promote well-being and mental health, which is extremely important given that more than 22% of the adult population in the United States suffers from a mental health disorder,” he said in a statement. .