A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services.
A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services.
The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was conducted by Jay Maddock, Ph.D., Regents Professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M, and colleagues from the Center for Health and Nature, a collaboration between Texas A&M Health, Houston Methodist and Texan by Nature. Maddock also directs the center.
The researchers measured urban greenness with NatureScore, which uses numerous data sets related to factors such as air, noise and light pollution, parks and tree canopies to calculate the amount and quality of natural elements for any known address in the United States and several other countries. Scores range from 0-19 points for Nature Deficient to 80-100 for Nature Utopia.
For addresses, they used data on mental health visits aggregated at the ZIP code level from Texas Hospital Outpatient Public Use Data Files from 2014 to mid-2019. The data contained information about patient encounters, including a patient’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, employment status, poverty level, principal diagnosis and ZIP code, although no patients were identified.
Read more at Texas A&M University
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