Does living in a green space help us live longer?

Brochu and collaborators link how green an area is and the death rates of residents. 

They “conducted a nationwide [in the United States] quantitative health impact assessment to estimate the predicted reduction in mortality associated with an increase in greenness across two decades (2000, 2010, and 2019). Using a recently published exposure-response function, Landsat 30 m 16-day satellite imagery from April to September, and publicly available county-level mortality data from the CDC, we calculated the age-adjusted reduction in all-cause mortality for those 65 years and older within 35 of the most populated metropolitan areas.

We estimated that between 34,000 and 38,000 all-cause deaths could have been reduced in 2000, 2010, and 2019 with a local increase in green vegetation by 0.1 unit across the most populated metropolitan areas. We found that overall greenness increased across time with a 2.86% increase from 2000 to 2010 to 11.11% from 2010 to 2019.”

Paige Brochu, Marcia Jimenez, Peter James, Patrick Kinney, and Kevin Lane.  2022. “Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades.”  Frontiers in Public Health, vol. 10, 841936, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.841936