Urban Green Space

Results: Of the three dependent variables of interest: self-reported general health, bodily functioning and general well-being (happiness), it was self-reported happiness that differed significantly between the two neighbourhoods, with greater happiness in the greener neighbourhood.

Conclusion: In this study the “importance of nearby green space or open space for people's overall well-being and suggests the need for green space to be evaluated in terms of visual proximity, that is, whether and how it is experienced from the street and the home.” Greener neighbourhoods scored better for self-reported general health/ happiness. Greenness related to general wellbeing and happiness.

Use Of Public Open Space

Faber Taylor, A., & Kuo, F. E. M.

C., & Maheswaran, R. (2011). The health benefits of urban green spaces: a review of the evidence. Journal of public health, 33(2), 212-222. (Atticus)

Research done on urban development projects can have have health and financial impacts. However evidence for physical and non-physical health benefits from urban green space within these projects is unclear.

Methodology: A collection of academic and ‘grey’ literature was collected on the health effects of green space and then that was categorized by theme.

Results: “weak evidence for the links between physical, mental health and well-being, and urban green space. Environmental factors such as the quality and accessibility of green space affects its use for physical activity. However, many studies were limited by poor study design, failure to exclude confounding, bias or reverse causality and weak statistical associations.” This is important, previous studies haven’t found the right study design to provide significant results.

Conclusion: “Most studies reported findings that generally supported the view that green space have a beneficial health effect. Establishing a causal relationship is difficult, as the relationship is complex. Simplistic urban interventions may therefore fail to address the underlying determinants of urban health that are not remediable by landscape

E., Maas, J., Verheij, R. A., & Groenewegen, P. P. (2010). Green space as a buffer between stressful life events and health. Social science & medicine, 70(8), 1203-1210. (Megan)

Many people seek out open spaces for when they are stressed. ‘‘People were going out that day, going for walks, reflecting on what was going on’’ (Lazaroff, 2002). Nature based coping methods were found effective, as evidenced by a growing number of studies showing that contact with nature can have beneficial health effects (De Vries, Verheij, Groenewegen, & Spreeuwenberg, 2003; Maas, Verheij, Groenewegen, De Vries, & Spreeuwenberg, 2006; Mitchell & Popham, 2007).

Methodology: The study that they used was quantitative data which represented a sample of Dutch residents (sample of 4529) to investigate to what extent the presence of green space in their living environment can buffer the adverse impacts of stressful life events on perceived health. The data for this study were derived from two separate datasets. The health data and data on stressful life events were collected within the framework of the second Dutch National Survey of General Practice (DNSGP-2), conducted in the Netherlands in 2000–2002 (Westert et al., 2005). The DNSGP-2 included a nationwide representative sample of 104 general practitioners practices with nearly 400,000 patients on their