Depressed? Poor? Sick? See green!

William Atkins
Friday, 16 October 2009 20:29

Science - Health

According to a Netherlands study, living close to green spaces means you are less likely to be depressed, anxious, and have other health-related problems. This conclusion is not new to the medical community, but it does add concrete scientific evidence to the already assumed statement that: Green is Good!


The Dutch study wanted to find out if increasing urbanization has an adverse effect on one’s health due to a lack of green spaces.

The authors stated within their research paper, “There is increasing evidence for a positive relation between green space in people's living environment and self-reported indicators of physical and mental health."

"This study investigates whether physician assessed morbidity is also related to green space in people's living environment.”

The Dutch researchers, thus, looked at the medical records from 345,143 patients of 195 general practitioners throughout the Netherlands.

They used the postal code from each record to determine just how much green space (parks, grass, trees, etc.) were within 1.2 kilometer (two miles) of that person.

And, they examined twenty-four different health conditions that doctors treated these people for over the period of one year.

Dr. Jolanda Maas, from EMGO Institute, VU University Medical Centre, Netherlands, and one of the researchers in the study, stated, "The strongest associations we saw between green space and health occurred within a 1 kilometer [0.6 mile] radius of the home.” [WebMD (10/14/2009): “Parks, Green Spaces Protect Your Health”]

Page two talks about four of the conclusions from the Dutch study.