Greenspace and mental health: Is there an association?

Keywords: Greenspace, mental health, greenspace metrics
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 21

Abstract

Greenspace positively impacts mental health, is a low-cost health intervention to mitigate the impacts of high temperatures, and encourages physical activity and social cohesion. However, the evidence of the mental health impacts of greenspace is still evolving due to the lack of universal metrics of greenspace and limited understanding of the complex mediating and moderating factors between greenspace and mental health. Previous research suggests quantity, in addition to quality and accessibility of greenspace are contributing factors to the mental health-greenspace relationship. Yet, little is known of how these metrics alter the relationship for varying individual (e.g., age, gender, race) and community-level factors (e.g., structural racism, urbanity, poverty). This research will address these gaps with the following research questions: (1) Do quantity, quality and accessibility of greenspace affect mental health outcomes in North Carolina? (2) Do these relationships change when accounting for different contextual and compositional factors? I will quantify mental health utilizing a novel dataset of mental health outcomes that provides complete spatiotemporal coverage of (1) mental health, (2) suicide, (3) depression, (4) stress and anxiety, and (5) substance abuse across North Carolina. Results are expected to show that a higher quantity of accessible, high quality greenspace will result in lower mental health related emergency department visits. Multilevel models will be used to disentangle the influence of individual and community-level factors. This work will further foundational knowledge on the impacts of greenspace quantity, quality, and accessibility on greenspace and mental health relationships.