Socioeconomic Differences in Walking Time of Children and Adolescents to Public Green Spaces in Urban Areas-Results of the German Environmental Survey (2014-2017).

Julia Rehling,Christiane Bunge,André Conrad,Julia Waldhauer

doi:10.3390/ijerph18052326

Abstract

Public green spaces have a high potential for a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing, especially in urban areas. Studies on environmental justice indicate socially unequal access possibilities to urban green spaces. This article presents results on associations between individual socioeconomic position (SEP) and walking time from home to public green spaces in young people living in urban areas with more than 20,000 inhabitants in Germany. Data were derived from the German Environmental Survey for Children and Adolescents 2014–2017 (GerES V), the environmental module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS Wave 2). The sample comprises 1149 participants aged 3 to 17 years. A total of 51.5% of the participants reach a public green space on foot within five and 72.8% within ten minutes from home. The lower the participant’s SEP, the longer the walking time. Logistic regression models controlling for age group, sex, migration background, and region of residence show that participants with a low SEP have a significantly higher risk (odds ratio = 1.98; 95% confidence interval: 1.31–2.99) of needing more than ten minutes to walk from home to a public green space than participants with a high SEP. GerES V data indicate that young people living in urban areas in Germany do not equally benefit from the health-promoting potential of green spaces, which is an important aspect of environmental health inequalities.

Highlights

Almost half of the world’s children live in urban areas [1]
A further 21.3% need six to ten minutes, which means that 72.8% of the children and adolescents reach a public green space on foot within ten minutes and 27.2% need more than ten minutes
Almost 10.0% of the participants need more than 20 min to walk from home to a public green space, and nearly 5.0% walk longer than 30 min

Summary

Introduction

The acceleration of urban demographic growth, conflicts about the use of space, and the increasing impacts of climate change put especially urban areas under pressure. Addressing these challenges is one of the key tasks in order to provide healthy and sustainable living environments for the inhabitants of urban areas [3]. Urban green spaces—as part of the concept of environmental health [4]—play an important role in this context They provide areas for physical activities, stress reduction, relaxation, and social interaction, and offer a high potential for beneficial effects on health and well-being, for both adults and children [5,6,7,8]. Empirical evidence on the effects of urban green spaces on children’s health shows that they are positively associated with physical activity [9,10], reduced obesity [11], intellectual and behavioural development [12]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion