Background Green spaces have been proposed to be a health determinant, improving health and wellbeing through different mechanisms. We aimed to systematically review the epidemiological evidence from longitudinal studies that have investigated green spaces and their association with all-cause mortality. We aimed to evaluate this evidence with a meta-analysis, to determine exposure-response functions for future quantitative health impact assessments. MethodsWe did a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies on green spaces and all-cause mortality. We searched for studies published and indexed in MEDLINE before Aug 20, 2019, which we complemented with an additional search of cited literature. We included studies if their design was longitudinal; the exposure of interest was measured green space; the endpoint of interest was all-cause mortality; they provided a risk estimate (ie, a hazard ratio [HR]) and the corresponding 95% CI for the association between green space exposure and all-cause mortality; and they used normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) as their green space exposure definition. Two investigators (DR-R and DP-L) independently screened the full-text articles for inclusion. We used a random-effects model to obtain pooled HRs. This study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42018090315.Findings We identified 9298 studies in MEDLINE and 13 studies that were reported in the literature but not indexed in MEDLINE, of which 9234 (99%) studies were excluded after screening the titles and abstracts and 68 (88%) of 77 remaining studies were excluded after assessment of the full texts. We included nine (12%) studies in our quantitative evaluation, which comprised 8 324 652 individuals from seven countries. Seven (78%) of the nine studies found a significant inverse relationship between an increase in surrounding greenness per 0·1 NDVI in a buffer zone of 500 m or less and the risk of all-cause mortality, but two studies found no association. The pooled HR for all-cause mortality per increment of 0·1 NDVI within a buffer of 500 m or less of a participant's residence was 0·96 (95% CI 0·94-0·97; I², 95%). Interpretation We found evidence of an inverse association between surrounding greenness and all-cause mortality.Interventions to increase and manage green spaces should therefore be considered as a strategic public health intervention.

Air pollution is high on the global agenda and is widely recognised as a threat to both public health and economic progress. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4.2 million deaths annually can be attributed to outdoor air pollution. Recently, there have been major advances in methods that allow the quantification of air pollution-related indicators to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and that expand the evidence base of the impacts of air pollution on health. Despite efforts to reduce air pollution in many countries there are regions, notably Central and Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, in which populations continue to be exposed to increasing levels of air pollution. The majority of the world’s population continue to be exposed to levels of air pollution substantially above WHO Air Quality Guidelines and, as such, air pollution constitutes a major, and in many areas, increasing threat to public health.

We review the major features of desert dust outbreaks that are relevant to the assessment of dust impacts upon human health. Our ultimate goal is to provide scientific guidance for the acquisition of relevant population exposure information for epidemiological studies tackling the short and long term health effects of desert dust. We first describe the source regions and the typical levels of dust particles in regions close and far away from the source areas, along with their size, composition, and bio-aerosol load. We then describe the processes by which dust may become mixed with anthropogenic particulate matter (PM) and/or alter its load in receptor areas. Short term health effects are found during desert dust episodes in different regions of the world, but in a number of cases the results differ when it comes to associate the effects to the bulk PM, the desert dust-PM, or non-desert dust-PM. These differences are likely due to the different monitoring strategies applied in the epidemiological studies, and to the differences on atmospheric and emission (natural and anthropogenic) patterns of desert dust around the world. We finally propose methods to allow the discrimination of health effects by PM fraction during dust outbreaks, and a strategy to implement desert dust alert and monitoring systems for health studies and air quality management.

In the 1970s, Italy experienced a difficult transition from Fordism to a flexible accumulation regime. The resulting changes in production relations led to the disappearance of traditional public spaces and meeting places such as open squares, workplaces, party offices or the premises of groups involved in the antagonistic, ie anti‐capitalist and anti‐fascist, movement. Within this context, in the 1980s and 1990s, these groups managed to create new social and political spaces by setting up Self‐Managed Social Centers (CSAs), ie squatted properties which became the venue of social, political and cultural events. Over 250 Social Centers have been active in Italy over the past 15 years, especially in urban areas. Their organizational modes are examples of successful direct democracy in non‐hierarchical structures and may provide alternative options to the bureaucratic organization of so many aspects of social and political life. Point number one on a Social Center's agenda is a daunting task: it must renovate and refurbish privately or publicly owned empty properties and turn them into public spaces open to the general public. For this task it relies exclusively on collective action, ie cooperative working modes which do not come under the provisions governing regular employment contracts and can thus be used to combat marginalization and exclusion processes which are becoming more and more dramatic in our cities. An analysis of the evolution of this original Italian movement provides the opportunity to address a number of issues associated with alternative practices to neoliberal globalization.

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