With over half of the world’s population living in urban environments, there is a substantial incentive to make urban landscapes and living spaces beautiful. People are drawn to and enjoy green spaces for various reasons. One that may not come to mind first is their effect on human health. A systematic literature review published in Environmental Research and Public Health in 2018 looked at the association between human health and urban green spaces.

The review identified 68 studies focused on urban green spaces and human health that were not based on perceptions and were not cross-sectional (single point in time or snapshot collections of evidence) studies. Of the studies selected, most relied on vegetation indexes generated from satellite imagery. Others measured urban green spaces by distance from parks or access to nature walk and run areas. Urban green spaces were associated with improved attention and mood, increased physical activity, and reduced violence and heart rate. Additionally, the study found a decreased association between mortality and urban green spaces.

Some limitations of the study were the low sample size which prevented determining if urban green spaces affected conditions such as cancer and diabetes, for example. And most of the studies reviewed were conducted in the global north, limiting generalization of the study findings to the global south.

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(3), 445; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030445

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