Ecosystems Services and Green Infrastructure for Respiratory Health Protection: A Data Science Approach for Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

Urban ecosystem services have become a main issue in contemporary urban sustainable development, whose efforts are challenged by the phenomena of world urbanization and climate change. This article presents a study about the ecosystem services of green infrastructure towards better respiratory health in a socioeconomic scenario typical of the Global South countries. The study involved a data science approach comprising basic and multivariate statistical analysis, as well as data mining, for the municipalities of the state of Paraná, in Brazil’s South region. It is a cross-sectional study in which multiple data sets are combined and analyzed to uncover relationships or patterns. Data were extracted from national public domain databases. We found that, on average, the municipalities with more area of biodiversity per inhabitant have lower rates of hospitalizations resulting from respiratory diseases (CID-10 X). The biodiversity index correlates inversely with the rates of hospitalizations. The data analysis also demonstrated the importance of socioeconomic issues in the environmental-respiratory health phenomena. The data mining analysis revealed interesting associative rules consistent with the learning from the basic statistics and multivariate analysis. Our findings suggest that green infrastructure provides ecosystem services towards better respiratory health, but these are entwined with socioeconomics issues. These results can support public policies towards environmental and health sustainable management.