The geospatial and conceptual configuration of the natural environment impacts the association with health outcomes and behavior in children and adolescents
Abstract:Background
Studies investigating associations between natural environments and health outcomes or health behaviors in children and adolescents yielded heterogenous results to date. This may be the result of different geospatial configurations of the natural environment and confounding characteristics of the study population. Thus, we investigated how the relationship between the natural environment and mental health, muscular fitness, and physical activity varies depending on the geospatial con… Show more
“…Our study expands upon previous research by Nigg et al (2022) and van Den Berg et al (2010). Specifically, this study demonstrates that nearby environmental factors influence positive emotions within a larger buffer, with stronger effects during open periods.…”
Section: Moderating Effects Of Scale On Emotionssupporting
Due to COVID-19, the urban lockdown has caused a significant impact on the mental health of residents. However, limited research investigates the role of neighborhood factors on residents’ mental health during and after the lockdown. This study examines Wuhan, the first city to experience the COVID-19 outbreak, employing multiple linear regression and XGBoost algorithms to analyze the emotional status and distribution of Wuhan residents. The goal of this study is to identify the moderating effect of the neighborhood environment scale on emotional positivity and the marginal effect of the neighborhood environment on residents’ emotions. The results of the study indicate that specific neighborhood environmental characteristics have varying effects on residents’ positive emotions, both before and after the COVID-19 lockdown. The green space ratio, attraction density, waterfront space density, and service facility density all positively affected mood within different distance ranges. Shopping facilities, on the other hand, had mainly positive effects during the open period, with negative effects during the closed period. Furthermore, this study determined scale thresholds where neighborhood environments had a positive effect on mood. For instance, attractions and waterfront areas improved the mood of residents in residential areas, up to at least 3 km away. Medical facilities had a positive effect on residents’ mood beyond 2.2 km. This study highlights crucial implications for planning and managing neighborhoods to promote resilience during future public health crises.
“…Our study expands upon previous research by Nigg et al (2022) and van Den Berg et al (2010). Specifically, this study demonstrates that nearby environmental factors influence positive emotions within a larger buffer, with stronger effects during open periods.…”
Section: Moderating Effects Of Scale On Emotionssupporting
Due to COVID-19, the urban lockdown has caused a significant impact on the mental health of residents. However, limited research investigates the role of neighborhood factors on residents’ mental health during and after the lockdown. This study examines Wuhan, the first city to experience the COVID-19 outbreak, employing multiple linear regression and XGBoost algorithms to analyze the emotional status and distribution of Wuhan residents. The goal of this study is to identify the moderating effect of the neighborhood environment scale on emotional positivity and the marginal effect of the neighborhood environment on residents’ emotions. The results of the study indicate that specific neighborhood environmental characteristics have varying effects on residents’ positive emotions, both before and after the COVID-19 lockdown. The green space ratio, attraction density, waterfront space density, and service facility density all positively affected mood within different distance ranges. Shopping facilities, on the other hand, had mainly positive effects during the open period, with negative effects during the closed period. Furthermore, this study determined scale thresholds where neighborhood environments had a positive effect on mood. For instance, attractions and waterfront areas improved the mood of residents in residential areas, up to at least 3 km away. Medical facilities had a positive effect on residents’ mood beyond 2.2 km. This study highlights crucial implications for planning and managing neighborhoods to promote resilience during future public health crises.
“…These results indicate that the relationship between nature and health may be difficult to generalize across nature types. For example, a recent article showed that associations between the natural environment and mental health, physical fitness, and physical activity varied dependent on the geospatial configuration of the environment, with these different configurations representing different concepts of the natural environment ( Nigg, Niessner, Burchartz, Woll, & Schipperijn, 2022 ). Hence, to create effective nature-based solutions, it is important to understand which nature types are most effective in promoting health and health behaviors ( Bratman et al, 2019 ).…”
“…Under the background of livable life circle construction, stakeholders (people) in one life circle extract medical services (Numbers of bed and accessibility) from the medical facility in different levels according to the relevant rules. The scenarios vary from the different actions of stakeholders, including government investment, market investment, incurring the change of socioeconomic development and the political setting [20,43]. The spatial equality of medical service function involves the interrelationship between the demand for medical services and the supply of medical services.…”
Background
At a time when life is starting to return to normal following the global pandemic, the medical service function as a key component of public infrastructure in livable communities still have an undeniable importance. In practice, however, due to a heterogeneity in the distribution of medical facilities, a significant spatial imbalance can exist in urban and country regions. By integrating the life circle theory and complex system theory, we try to propose a new framework to fill this gap and explain the formation mechanism of the medical service function equality. Furthermore, the feasibility of the framework was verified by evaluating the spatial equality of medical services of the primary, secondary, tertiary and total medical service function in Chengdu City, China.
Methods
Based on Z-score method, a quantitative method was constructed to quantitative detect the spatial pattern of Chengdu’s medical services. This method can help to accurately identify the spatial equality of the medical service function, thereby facilitating further refined policy formulation to improve these functions.
Results
The results for accessibility within the life circle indicate that 97.69% of the population and 63.76% of metropolitan Chengdu enjoy total access to medical services, but this desirable accessibility gradually decreases around the central line of Chengdu and the central areas of other districts and counties. The multi-center hierarchical structure of level II, level III and the total function reflects the fact that accessibility to medical facilities in the main urban areas is better than that in the surrounding counties, and in the central urban areas of these surrounding counties are better than that in their peripheral areas. the spatial equality for the total function, level III, and level II exhibits a clear hierarchical structure, namely core-edge pattern. Urban construction is gradually spread from the center to the outside, which fundamentally determines the skeleton of the spatial pattern of medical service facilities in Chengdu.
Conclusions
Findings of this research contribute new theoretical and methodological insights into addressing the spatial equality of public service functions in complex regional and urban system.
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