The loss of green space in an increasingly developed landscape may not only have negative environmental impacts but may also be detrimental to human health. The relationship between green space and health is dependent on not only the presence but also access to green space. This cross-sectional ecological study uses a geographical information system to examine the relationships between the presence and accessibility of green space and county-level mortality in the state of Florida. After controlling for some of the leading influences of mortalityincluding the levels of obesity, smoking, old age, and education -we found that the amount of green space within defined distances of census tracts in each county was associated with both all cause and cardiovascular mortality. Neither the gross amount of green space in a county nor the average distance to green space from census tracts in a county were significantly associated with our mortality measures.
The results suggest that there is an association between the accessibility created by having more green space closer to home and MVPA, but this holds only for areas up to and including 1 mile from home.
This article illustrates how a parcel-based geographic information system can be used to identify and quantify land-use changes within subareas of individual planning jurisdictions as the basis for evaluating the implementation of local land-use policies. We describe a method for using property-parcel polygons and property-appraiser tax-roll data to analyze the effects of changes in land use on the exposure of people and property to hurricane flooding in coastal communities in Florida. This method allows us to test the conformity of local government growth-management practices to a state mandate which calls for the limiting of development in hurricane hazard zones. We apply this method to analyze hurricane hazard exposure in Okaloosa County, which is a coastal county located in the Panhandle of Florida.
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