Department of Sociology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data, and Training, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Environ Health Perspect. 2018 Jul 24;126(7):077008. doi: 10.1289/EHP3397. eCollection 2018 Jul.
Increasing evidence suggests that residential exposures to natural environments, such as green spaces, are associated with many health benefits. Only a single study has examined the potential link between living near water and mortality.
We sought to examine whether residential proximity to large, natural water features (e.g., lakes, rivers, coasts, "blue space") was associated with cause-specific mortality.
Our study is based on a population-based cohort of nonimmigrant adults living in the 30 largest Canadian cities [i.e., the 2001 Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort) (CanCHEC)]. Subjects were drawn from the mandatory 2001 Statistics Canada long-form census, who were linked to the Canadian mortality database and to annual income-tax filings, through 2011. We estimated associations between living within of blue space and deaths from several common causes of death. We adjusted models for many personal and contextual covariates, as well as for exposures to residential greenness and ambient air pollution.
Our cohort included approximately 1.3 million subjects at baseline, 106,180 of whom died from nonaccidental causes during follow-up. We found significant, reduced risks of mortality in the range of 12-17% associated with living within of water in comparison with living farther away, among all causes of death examined, except with external/accidental causes. Protective effects were found to be higher among women and all older adults than among other subjects, and protective effects were found to be highest against deaths from stroke and respiratory-related causes.
Our findings suggest that living near blue spaces in urban areas has important benefits to health, but further work is needed to better understand the drivers of this association. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP3397.
越来越多的证据表明，居住在自然环境中，如绿色空间，与许多健康益处有关。仅有一项研究检查了居住在靠近水的地方与死亡率之间的潜在联系。
我们试图研究居住在大型自然水域（如湖泊、河流、海岸、“蓝色空间”）附近是否与特定原因的死亡率有关。
我们的研究基于居住在加拿大 30 个最大城市的非移民成年人的基于人群的队列（即 2001 年加拿大人口普查健康与环境队列）（CanCHEC）。研究对象来自强制性的 2001 年加拿大统计局长格式普查，通过 2011 年与加拿大死亡率数据库和年度所得税申报单相联系。我们估计了居住在蓝色空间内与几种常见死亡原因的死亡之间的关联。我们调整了模型，纳入了许多个人和背景协变量，以及居住绿色环境和环境空气污染的暴露情况。
我们的队列在基线时包括了大约 130 万名受试者，其中 106180 人在随访期间死于非意外原因。我们发现，与居住在较远的地方相比，在所有死亡原因中，除了外部/意外原因外，居住在水内与 12-17%的死亡率降低风险显著相关。在所有研究的原因中，我们发现女性和所有老年人的保护作用高于其他人群，并且对中风和与呼吸有关的死亡的保护作用最高。
我们的研究结果表明，在城市地区居住在蓝色空间附近对健康有重要的益处，但需要进一步的研究来更好地理解这种关联的驱动因素。
