Greenspace is better for childhood development

New research from Jarvis and colleagues has been published. They looked at how living near greenspace impacted childhood development. It turns out, that it does 🙂

How did they do it? They report that “early childhood development was assessed via teacher ratings on the Early Development Instrument (EDI), and we used the total EDI score as the primary outcome variable.

We estimated greenspace using percentage vegetation derived from spectral unmixing of annual Landsat satellite image composites. Lifetime residential exposure to greenspace was estimated as the mean of annual percentage vegetation values within 250 m of participants’ residential postal codes. . . .  We estimated the mediation effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2·5), and noise levels using causal mediation analyses. . . . 1 IQR [inter quartile range] increase in percentage vegetation was associated with a 0·16 . . . increase in total EDI score, indicating small improvements in early childhood development. . . . Increased exposure to residential greenspace might improve childhood development by reducing the adverse developmental effects of traffic-related exposures, especially NO2 air pollution.”

Ingrid Jarvis and 12 others. 2021. “Assessing the Association Between Lifetime Exposure to Greenspace and Early Childhood Development and the Mediation Effects of Air Pollution and Noise in Canada:  A Population-Based Birth Cohort Study.”  The Lancet, vol. 5, no 10, pp. E709-E717, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00235-7