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Greenness and Self-Reported Well-Being in a Representative Sample of the US Population (US-IALE 2018)
Citation:
Silva, R., S. Prince, F. Cochran, M. Nash, A. Neale, AND T. Buckley. Greenness and Self-Reported Well-Being in a Representative Sample of the US Population (US-IALE 2018). US-IALE 2018, Chicago, IL, April 08 - 12, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
We will present results from a project linking data from a nationwide US survey and EnviroAtlas. The goal of this research is to examine the associations, at the individual level, between objective measures of exposure to natural environments (presence of nearby natural areas, two metrics of tree cover and access to recreational public green spaces) and self-reported general health (“Health”) and subjective well-being (“Happiness”), taking into account demographics and socio-cultural factors.
Description:
There is growing recognition that the natural environment has a critical role in promoting human health and well-being. However, we need to better characterize the magnitude of potential beneficial effects, at the individual level, and the factors that influence the association between exposure to natural environments and human health and well-being. We will present results from a project linking data from a nationwide US survey and EnviroAtlas. The goal of this research is to examine the associations, at the individual level, between objective measures of exposure to natural environments (presence of nearby natural areas, two metrics of tree cover and access to recreational public green spaces) and self-reported general health (“Health”) and subjective well-being (“Happiness”), taking into account demographics and socio-cultural factors. We use data from a sample of 7379 adults aged 18 and over, representative of the American population, who participated in the General Social Survey (GSS) from 2012 to 2016. An initial analysis applying multivariate logistic regression to binary transformations of the outcome variables (Health and Happiness) showed that, in a fully adjusted model, Happiness had a strong association with “Excellent” Health (and to a lesser extent “Good” Health), followed by Employment Status and Marital Status. The upper quartile of presence of nearby natural areas showed a statistically significant association with Happiness, with a comparable effect to that of spending an evening with relatives once a month or more. Additionally, we found an interaction effect between presence of nearby natural areas and tree cover that warrants further investigation. We did not find any statistically significant associations between self-reported general health and any of four EnviroAtlas metrics, after controlling for demographics and socio-cultural factors. Additional detailed analyses explore these preliminary findings and use ordinal logistic regression to more fully account for the outcome response categories in the survey data.
