Childhood Anxiety and Greenspace Access

De la Osa and team collected data from children 3 – 11 years old: “Exposure to greenspace has been associated with mental health benefits in children; however, the available evidence for such an association with anxiety is still scarce. . . . [In the de la Osa-lead study] Long-term exposure to greenspace was characterized at both residential address and school as (i) surrounding greenspace based on satellite-derived indexes (normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and Vegetation Continuous Field (VCF) across different buffers and (ii) distance to the nearest green space. . . . Higher greenspace surrounding home and school were associated with lower levels of anxiety. Our findings suggest that increasing exposure to greenspace, specially at schools, could be included in preventive policies to promote mental health in children.”

Nuria de la Osa, Jose-Blas Navarro, Eva Pennelo, Antonia Valenti, Lourdes Ezpeleta, and Payam Dadavand. 2024. “Long-Term Exposure to Greenspace and Anxiety from Preschool and Primary School Children.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 93, 102207, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102207