Abstract
Air and water pollution have detrimental effects on health, while physical activity opportunities have a positive relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore whether physical activity opportunities moderate the relationships among air and water pollution, and measures of health. Aggregate data were collected at the county level in the United States (n = 3104). Variables included the mean daily density of fine particle matter (air pollution), reported cases of health-related drinking water violations (water pollution), subjective ratings of poor or fair health (overall health), the number of physically and mentally unhealthy (physical and mental health, respectively), and the percentage of people living in close proximity to a park or recreation facility (access to physical activity). Air and water pollution have a significant positive effect on all measures of residents’ poor health, while physical activity opportunities only have a negative effect on overall health and physical health. Access to physical activity only moderates the relationship between air pollution and all health outcomes. Since physical activity behavior can be more rapidly changed than some causes of pollution, providing the resident population with better access to physical activity can represent an effective tool in environmental health policy.
Highlights
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted that climate change increases the risks to human security, livelihoods, food security, water supply, and health [1]
In the average county, almost 18% of the residents reported poor or fair health (M = 17.930, SD = 4.753), they averaged about four days a month of poor physical health (M = 3.991, SD = 0.707), and they averaged over four days of poor mental health (M = 4.168, SD = 0.605)
As can be seen in Models 2a–c, AccesstoPA has a significant negative association with PoorFairHealth (B = −0.149, SE = 0.044, p < 0.01) and PhysUnhealthyDays (B = −0.019, SE = 0.008, p < 0.05), but not with MenUnhealthyDays (B = −0.014, SE = 0.008, p > 0.05). These results indicate that Hypothesis 2 is only supported for overall poor health and poor physical health, but not for poor mental health
Summary
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted that climate change increases the risks to human security, livelihoods, food security, water supply, and health [1]. These risks are mostly associated with air and water pollution. Consistent with the IPCC’s [1] warnings, air and water pollution negatively affect individuals’ health [4,5,6]. Following the Lancet Commission on pollution and health, “pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today” [7]
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