Urban Green Spaces and Health - Evidence, Limitations, and Ways Forward

Abstract

Based on scientific evidence, the World Health Organization advocates for public green space as an important component of healthy cities. Different pathways and mechanisms are likely to mediate the health effects of exposure to green spaces. Those range from stress reduction and increased physical activity to regulating ecosystem services, such as heat and noise reduction. Many of these pathways are causally related to common non-communicable diseases, for example, depression, and urban heat related morbidity, disorders that have been negatively associated with exposure to green spaces. The evidence is limited by various factors, such as lack of validation of exposure metrics and shortness of experimental data.Attempts to standardise and optimise exposure metrics are ongoing, but depending on what health outcome is studied different types of measurements are needed. For example, measuring the impact on heat related morbidity may require different metrics than for estimating mental health benefits. Aspects...