The Health Benefits of Exposure to Greenery

"We found that those who have more trees and vegetation around where they lived had an eight to 12 per cent reduced risk of dying compared to those who didn’t."
 "Holding all that constant [ambient pollution, population density, socio-economic conditions], if you live in a greener area, compared to a less greener area, there’s about a 10-per-cent reduced risk of dying."
"One thing that was kind of striking is that we found that those who were in the highest income bracket and those who had the highest levels of education were benefiting more from the exposure to greenness."
"If you take two people and everything else is more or less the same … their age, sex and city they live in and they both have the same amount of greenness around where they live, someone who is more affluent is getting a big boost to their risk of dying whereas people in the lowest income group were getting almost no benefit at all."
"Parks are important but I think this shows that it’s just as important to have trees on medians and along streets and sidewalks where people are going to have contact on a regular basis."
"If it's a really nice green area, it's sort of a pleasant spot, people are more inclined to go walking, even just walking their dog, not necessarily getting … intense physical exercise."
"Water is completely different from green space, but living on the water can be very relaxing and stress reducing."
Dr. Dan Crouse, Epidemiologist, Research Associate in Sociology, University of New Brunswick 

Saint John's Rockwood Park is one of Canada's largest urban parks at 890 hectares. (YouTube)

A new study just published in the latest issue of The Lancet Planetary Health, is intriguing for its findings, but it shouldn't surprise people who gravitate to the out-of-doors in their leisure time for the distinct purpose of immersing themselves in natural surroundings such as city parks or urban forests. Ten researchers from Canada and one based in the United States formed a team led by Dr. Crouse do determine the health effects of being surrounded by trees and other types of natural greenery.

They undertook an extended study of data encompassing 1.3 million people over an eleven-year time span in cities around Canada, in an effort to understand and determine how people benefit from being in green environments. What they discovered was what they might have expected, except that the rate of benefit far outdistanced their expectation.

Constant, direct exposure to a green environment, they concluded, had the effect of reducing mortality caused by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases by between 8 and 12 percent.

It's no mystery that when you're immersed in an atmosphere of green, growing flora it has a calming effect. That kind of exposure is pleasurable and mellow, tending to a feeling of peacefulness. At risk of appearing maudlin: "at one with the world". But the mechanical properties of plant life represent an invaluable attribute; they cleanse the air we breathe by taking in carbon dioxide and exuding oxygen.

Moreover, when we venture into natural settings, in a park, on a forest trail, we walk or bicycle, exercising ourselves.

Most people acknowledge that having a canine companion results in the feeling of responsibility to get that dog, large or small, out for its daily exercise, a requirement to ensure the dog remains healthy. What works for dogs works for people, and in the very same way; exercise benefits a dog's cardiovascular and respiratory system just as it does for humans. We feel better about ourselves walking among trees and shrubs, and our vital organs, our muscles and our brains benefit.

Statistics Canada's many yearly collections and outputs of data carefully gathered and computed into useful form provide statistics used by many lines of research enquiries as well as for businesses. In this instance, their statistics from 2001 also aided this study which used the long-form census to compare it to mortality data within Canada for the following 11 years; extracting that information helped the researchers gain their end result.

Taking into account, moreover, the aggregate number of trees, plants, shrubs and allied vegetation in a 250-metre proximity to peoples' homes enabled the research team to conclude estimates of daily exposure to living greenery and that exposure's impact on longevity. Interviews resulted in anecdotal accounts of the stress-relieving capacity in green exposure on peoples' minds.

Economics enters the picture when it was judged that those in lower-income brackets may have less leisure time, and less opportunity to immerse themselves in green surroundings.The element of continuous exposure to local parks or trees growing on a boulevard close to one's home which can be passed daily has its benefits, as opposed to once-weekly visiting a treed park.