Green Spaces and Medicine

Turunen and colleagues link green and blue spaces and quality-of-life: “associations of the amounts of residential green and blue spaces within 1 km radius around the respondent’s home (based on the Urban Atlas 2012), green and blue views from home and green space visits with self-reported use of psychotropic (anxiolytics, hypnotics and antidepressants), antihypertensive and asthma medication were examined. . . . Amounts of residential green and blue spaces or green and blue views from home were not associated with medications. However, the frequency of green space visits was associated with lower odds of using psychotropic medication . . . and antihypertensive . . . medication use. . . . Frequent green space visits, but not the amounts of residential green or blue spaces, or green and blue views from home, were associated with less frequent use of psychotropic, antihypertensive and asthma medication in urban environments.”

Anu Turunen, Jaana Halonen, Kalevi Korpela, Ann Ojala, Tytti Pasanen, Taina Siponen, Pekka Tiittanen, Liisa Tyrvainen, Tarja Yli-Tuomi, and Timo Lanki. 2023. “Cross-Sectional Associations of Different Types of Nature Exposure with Psychotropic Antihypertensive and Asthma Medication.”  Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 80, no. 2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2022-108491