Geography Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America.
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Mar 2;17(3):e0263779. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263779. eCollection 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted both physical and mental health. This study aimed to understand whether exposure to green space buffered against stress and distress during the COVID-19 pandemic while taking into account significant stressors of the pandemic.
We leveraged a cross-sectional survey on green space exposure and mental health among residents of Denver, CO that ran from November 2019 through January 2021. We measured objective green space as the average NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) from aerial imagery within 300m and 500m of the participant's residence. Perceived green space was measured through Likert scores on five questions about vegetation near the home that captured perceived abundance, visibility, access, usage, and quality of green space. We used generalized linear models to assess the relationship between each green space exposure variable and perceived stress (PSS-4), depression (CES-D-10), or anxiety (MMPI-2) adjusted for sociodemographic and COVID-19 impact variables.
We found significantly higher depression scores for all covid periods compared to the "before covid" period, and significantly higher anxiety scores during the "fall wave" compared to earlier periods. Adjusted for sociodemographic and pandemic stressors, we found that spending a lot of time in green space (usage) was significantly associated with lower anxiety and depression. We also observed significantly lower depression scores associated with NDVI in both buffers (objective abundance) and significantly lower anxiety scores with perceived abundance of green space. There was some evidence of lower anxiety scores for people reporting having high quality green spaces near the home (quality). We did not observe significant associations for any green space metric and perceived stress after adjustment for confounding variables.
Our work provides further evidence of mental health benefits associated with green space exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic even after adjustment for sociodemographic variables and significant pandemic-related stressors.
COVID-19 大流行对身心健康都产生了影响。本研究旨在了解在考虑到 COVID-19 大流行期间的重大压力源的情况下，接触绿色空间是否可以缓解压力和困扰。
我们利用了一项在科罗拉多州丹佛市进行的关于绿色空间暴露和心理健康的横断面调查，该调查于 2019 年 11 月至 2021 年 1 月进行。我们将 300 米和 500 米范围内的参与者居住地的航空图像的平均 NDVI（归一化差异植被指数）作为客观绿色空间进行测量。感知绿色空间通过五个关于家庭附近植被的问题的李克特评分进行测量，这些问题捕捉了感知的丰富度、可见度、可达性、使用情况和绿色空间的质量。我们使用广义线性模型来评估每个绿色空间暴露变量与感知压力（PSS-4）、抑郁（CES-D-10）或焦虑（MMPI-2）之间的关系，这些变量都经过了社会人口统计学和 COVID-19 影响变量的调整。
我们发现，与“新冠前”时期相比，所有 COVID 时期的抑郁评分明显升高，与早期时期相比，“秋季波”期间的焦虑评分明显升高。在调整了社会人口统计学和大流行压力源后，我们发现，大量时间花在绿色空间（使用）与较低的焦虑和抑郁显著相关。我们还观察到，在两个缓冲区（客观丰富度）中，与 NDVI 相关的抑郁评分显著降低，与感知绿色空间丰富度相关的焦虑评分显著降低。有证据表明，报告家庭附近有高质量绿色空间的人焦虑评分较低（质量）。在调整混杂变量后，我们没有观察到任何绿色空间指标与感知压力之间存在显著关联。
即使在调整了社会人口统计学变量和与 COVID-19 大流行相关的重大压力源后，我们的工作也提供了更多与 COVID-19 大流行期间绿色空间暴露相关的心理健康益处的证据。
