A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that exposure to urban green space has a positive effect on mental health.
Abby Santoro/Texas A&M University Marketing and Communications Department
A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that urban residents with greater exposure to urban green spaces have less need for mental health services.
This research International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Healthwas conducted by Dr. Jay Maddock, Regents Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Texas A&M, and colleagues at the Center for Health and Nature, a collaboration of Texas A&M Health, Houston Methodist, and Texan by Nature. Ta. Maddock will also command center.
Researchers used NatureScore to measure the greenness of cities. NatureScore calculates the quantity and quality of natural elements at known addresses in the United States and several other countries using numerous datasets related to factors such as air, noise, light pollution, parks, and tree canopy. Masu. . Scores range from 0-19 points for Nature Deficient to 80-100 points for Nature Utopia.
For address, we used data on mental health visits aggregated at the zip code level from the Texas Hospital Ambulatory Public Use Data File from 2014 to mid-2019. This data included information about the patient encounter, including the patient’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, employment status, poverty level, primary diagnosis, and zip code; It was not done.
“Although the association between exposure to nature and improved mental health is well established in the United States and elsewhere, most studies have used only one or two measures of this exposure.” Maddock said. “Our study is the first to use NatureScore, which provides more complex data, to study the correlation between exposure to urban nature and mental health.”
A total of 61,391,400 outpatient adults with depression, bipolar disorder, stress, and anxiety disorders in Texas cities were sampled. This sample included data for his 1,169 zip codes in urban Texas, with a median NatureScore of 85.8. Approximately half of the samples had a high NatureScore (80+) and approximately 22% had a NatureScore below 40.
Of these encounters, 63 percent were women, 30 percent were 65 years of age or older, 54 percent were non-Hispanic whites, and 15 percent were Hispanics. At the ZIP code level, 27 percent of the total population has a bachelor’s degree, 58 percent are employed, 14 percent live in poverty, and 17 percent have no health insurance. . Areas with higher NatureScores were more likely to be 65 years of age or older, white, Hispanic, and employed. Additionally, ZIP codes with higher NatureScores had lower proportions of people who were Black, lived in poverty, or were uninsured.
As a neighborhood’s NatureScore increased, the propensity to encounter a variety of mental health conditions decreased, with neighborhoods with a NatureScore above 60 having approximately 50% lower rates of mental health encounters. Utopia — had significantly lower rates of mental health encounters compared to regions in the lowest NatureScore category.
“We found that a NatureScore of 40 or higher (considered Nature Adequate) appears to be a measure of good mental health,” Maddock said. “People in these regions are 51 percent less likely to develop depression and 63 percent less likely to develop bipolar disorder.”
Omar M. Makram, lead author of the study, noted that these findings could have important implications for urban planning.
“Increasing green space in cities can promote well-being and mental health. This is critical given that more than 22 percent of the U.S. adult population has a mental health disorder. ” he said.
