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Utilizing 1-meter Landcover Data to Assess Associations between Green Space and Stress
Citation:
Wilson, A. AND L. Jackson. Utilizing 1-meter Landcover Data to Assess Associations between Green Space and Stress. American Public Health Association Meeting (APHA), Chicago, IL, October 31 - November 04, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
To communicate research progress concerning urban ecosystem services and public health benefits
Description:
Purpose: When using remotely-sensed data to study health, researchers must identify an appropriate spatial resolution to capture potential exposures. Investigations into urban green space are often limited by the unavailability of fine-scale landcover data. We analyzed 1-meter green space, tree cover, and water metrics from communities featured in EnviroAtlas, an EPA ecosystem services mapping tool, in order to assess stress at the address level within a Wisconsin-based prospective cohort dataset. Hypothesis: We expect that high-resolution landcover data will increase the clarity of associations reported in previous studies between green space and stress.Methods: We prepared spatial metrics by generating focal statistics from landcover in Green Bay and Milwaukee, WI. Metrics included percent total green space, tree cover, and water within radii of 50m, 500m, and 1,000m for all locations across both urban areas. Stress levels - measured via biological indicators and survey data - were analyzed across 2009 – 2013 using multilevel linear regression.Results: We expect that our high-resolution spatial metrics, combined with address-level cohort data, will result in reduced error when comparing findings from previous studies utilizing coarser spatial data. Conclusions: This research may strengthen existing evidence that green space and tree cover are protective for stress. The inclusion of water in our panel of neighborhood metrics adds another potential positive exposure to urban design features previously assessed. Future research will explore the extent to which stress reduction linked to urban natural features is attributable to health promotional behaviors as opposed to hazard reduction.