Green spaces and cognitive development in primary schoolchildren

Dadvand, Payam; Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark; Esnaola, Mikel; Forns, Joan; Basagaña, Xavier; Álvarez-Pedrerol, Mar; Rivas, Ioar; López-Vicente, Mònica; Pascual, Montserrat De Castro; Su, Jason; Jerrett, Michael; Querol, Xavier; Sunyer, Jordi

doi:10.1073/pnas.1503402112

Cited by 680 publications

(534 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In children, exposure to GI is linked to cognitive development [38], a reduction in emotional problems [41], and an improvement in school-related performance [37]. Future research should try to replicate these findings in different settings to gain more confidence in them.…”

Section: Other Benefits On Humans' Mindsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Tree density is positively associated with lower crime rates [43,44,47,48,50], more optimal cortisol patterns [19][20][21]75], lower blood pressure [16,17], lower rates of obesity [62], lower allergy rates [27], higher cognitive development and performance [37,38], lower prescription rates of antidepression medication [40], and better pregnancy outcomes [23][24][25][26].…”

Section: Tree Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Green Infrastructure, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Human Health: A Review

Suppakittpaisarn

Jiang

Sullivan

2017

Curr Landscape Ecol Rep

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Purpose of the Review In a growing trend, cities around the world have been installing Green Infrastructure (GI) in the form of vegetated landscapes that provide ecological benefits such as stormwater management, wildlife habitats, and temperature moderation (Tzoulas et al. Landsc Urban Plan. 61(3):11, 2007). Some GI, such as trees and green spaces, have positive impacts on human health. It is less clear how newer types of GI, such as rain gardens, green roofs, and bioswales, impact human health. These newer GI types are called Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI). Planners and designers need to know the extent to which GSI impacts humans. This systematic review does exactly that-we explore the published evidence regarding the relationships between GI and human health. Recent Findings We identified 55 peer-reviewed articles addressing these issues. Familiar types of GI, such as trees and green spaces, were found to be beneficial to the body (cardiovascular system, cortisol regulation, and pregnancy health), mind (attention capacity and mental health), and behavior (lower crime, better self-regulation, and more pro-social behaviors). We found much less research exploring the impacts of GSI on health.Summary Our findings show that for some of the specific categories of GI, such as trees, considerable evidence exists on the impacts on human health. For other categories, such as rain gardens, green roofs, or biodiverse plantings, however, there is scant evidence of a health impact. We believe it is likely that these forms of GI do impact human health and that the reason for the scarcity of evidence is that few careful studies have examined the impacts of newer forms of GI on specific human health outcomes. Future researchers should investigate the health effects of type, dose, frequency, and duration of exposure to GI and GSI.

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Section: Other Benefits On Humans' Mindsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Tree Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Infrastructure, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Human Health: A Review

Suppakittpaisarn

Jiang

Sullivan

2017

Curr Landscape Ecol Rep

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“…Thus, living environment and place can be linked to environmental literacy and cognitive formation and development. Research on primary school students in Spain showed that those with more exposure to green space showed better memory and greater cognitive development 9 . It is important then to establish whether exposure to green space and seeing green spaces may be explicitly linked to environmental literacy, especially with adults.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of Factors Influencing Environmental Literacy in Suburban Park Users

Clark

Sorensen

Jordan

2016

Curr. World Environ

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Urban green spaces have long been studied in terms of their impact on human and environmental health and well-being. We collected and analyzed preliminary survey data for central New Jersey municipalities relating to participants' perceptions of public green spaces, quality, and usage and relating these factors to environmental knowledge and literacy. Results have yielded new insights into the role of urban canopy cover in differing levels of environmental literacy. Included in this, persons living in areas with higher canopy cover have higher levels of environmental literacy (p=0.0338) and higher educational attainment (p=0.049). Persons with access to higher quality parks also exhibited higher levels of educational attainment (p=0.0475). This relationship and others collectively would support there being multiple types of environmental literacy, with diverse sources, impacts, and outcomes on individuals and communities. Work done to this point has not addressed this idea, nor sought to study the connections between EL and all influencing socio-cultural and landscape factors.

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“…Study highlighting the need for green space Barbosa and colleagues (2007, 194) concluded: "those who appear to enjoy the greatest access to green space include those who might be considered in most need of publicly provided green space benefits, such as the least affluent and the elderly." Age also plays a remarkable role in how important the amenities and affordances of the residential area are to health and well-being (Corraliza et al 2012;Chawla et al 2014;Dadvand et al 2015). Nearby walkable green spaces are reported to promote the health of senior citizens in densely populated urban areas (Takano et al 2002), while children's exposure to green space microbes develops and strengthens their immune system (Ruokolainen et al 2015).…”

Section: Measured Socioeconomic-demographic Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping the distributive environmental justice of urban waters

Viinikka

Paloniemi²,

Assmuth³

2018

Fennia

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In this paper, we identify patterns of distributive environmental justice in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA) in terms of spatial proximity of urban waters, as a potential provider of a diverse set of environmental goods and well-being. Our focus is on the question how equally these benefits are distributed in HMA? To answer this we apply a GIS-based clustering analysis with spatial statistics to map the good and deprived access of different socio-economic and demographic groups to urban blue. We use income, education, language and age as factors to delineate residential areas and found not only differences in how various population groups are located in the four different municipalities of the HMA, but also differences in group distances to the nearest water areas. Results show that high income and high educational background, Swedish language and high age are factors more frequently related to living closer to water areas. At the same time, children, foreigners, and people having lower economic status tend to live further away from urban blue. This is important knowledge to be integrated into urban planning. The recognition of lacking opportunities suggests more consideration towards these aforementioned population groups to reduce inequality and to ensure just distribution of accessible and usable urban nature in the HMA.

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Green spaces and cognitive development in primary schoolchildren

Cited by 680 publications

References 44 publications

Green Infrastructure, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Human Health: A Review

Green Infrastructure, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Human Health: A Review

Characterization of Factors Influencing Environmental Literacy in Suburban Park Users

Mapping the distributive environmental justice of urban waters

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