Greenspace and health outcomes in Chinese population / 环境与职业医学

ABSTRACT

Greenspace may bring benefits to human health. Evidence on greenness and health has accumulated in western countries, and several reviews have summarized such evidence. Researchers have also conducted some studies on greenspace and human health in Chinese population, but no prior review has pooled or summarized them. To provide more comprehensive evidence on this topic, we searched and summarized studies on greenspace and health that were conducted specifically in Chinese population. We found that a certain number of studies have been conducted in China, and the evidence indicates that greenspace exposure may reduce the odds of cardiovascular diseases, mental health disorders, adverse birth outcomes as well as mortality. However, most of the current reported studies were of cross-sectional design or randomized controlled trails targeting short-term effects, and prospective cohort studies were scarce. Moreover, greenness exposure was mainly assessed using greenness index like normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI), which were static and cannot distinguish construction and species of greenspaces. Future prospective studies with more precise greenness exposure assessment are warranted to evaluate the prior findings.