Institute of Sport Science, University of Bern, Bremgartenstrasse 145, 3012, Bern, Switzerland.
Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Engler-Bunte-Ring 15, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Int J Health Geogr. 2022 Aug 11;21(1):9. doi: 10.1186/s12942-022-00309-0.
Studies investigating associations between natural environments and health outcomes or health behaviors in children and adolescents yielded heterogenous results to date. This may be the result of different geospatial configurations of the natural environment and confounding characteristics of the study population. Thus, we investigated how the relationship between the natural environment and mental health, muscular fitness, and physical activity varies depending on the geospatial configuration of nature and children's and adolescents' characteristics.
Data were derived from the German Motorik-Modul (MoMo) cohort study (2018-2020) that investigates physical activity, muscular fitness, and health parameters in a national sample of children and adolescents (N = 2843) between four and 17 years (M = 10.46 ± 3.49 years; 48.3% girls). Mental health was assessed via questionnaire, muscular fitness via standing long jump, and physical activity with 7-day accelerometer measurement. Using geographic information systems, land cover, and land use data, three different nature definitions were applied. Both circular buffers (100-1000 m) and street-network buffers (1000-5000 m) were created for each of the nature definitions. Associations were explored with linear regression models, and interaction analysis was used to investigate how those relationships vary by gender, age, and socio-economic status.
The relationship between the three outcomes and the natural environment varied considerably depending on the nature definition, buffer size, and buffer type, as well as socio-demographic characteristics. Specifically, when comparing youth with a high socio-economic status to those with a medium socio-economic status, smaller circular buffer distances were related to less physical activity, but larger street-network buffer distances were related to greater mental health problems. Distinct relationships also occurred for youth with low socio-economic status in those relationships, with the pattern being less clear.
For future health research studies that investigate the role of the natural environment, we argue for the development of an a-priori model that integrates both geospatial considerations (nature definition, buffer type, and buffer size) and conceptual considerations (health outcome/behavior, sample characteristics) based on potentially underlying mechanisms that link the natural environment and the health outcome or behavior under investigation to theoretically underpin the geospatial configuration of the natural environment.
目前，研究儿童和青少年的自然环境与健康结果或健康行为之间的关系得出的结果存在差异。这可能是由于自然环境的不同地理空间配置和研究人群的混杂特征所致。因此，我们研究了自然环境与心理健康、肌肉健康和身体活动之间的关系如何因自然环境的地理空间配置以及儿童和青少年的特征而有所不同。
数据来自德国运动学模块（MoMo）队列研究（2018-2020 年），该研究在全国儿童和青少年样本中调查身体活动、肌肉健康和健康参数（N=2843 人；年龄 4-17 岁，M=10.46±3.49 岁；48.3%为女孩）。心理健康通过问卷调查进行评估，肌肉健康通过站立跳远进行评估，身体活动通过 7 天加速度计测量进行评估。使用地理信息系统、土地覆盖和土地利用数据，应用了三种不同的自然定义。对于每一种自然定义，都创建了圆形缓冲区（100-1000 米）和街道网络缓冲区（1000-5000 米）。使用线性回归模型探索关联，并用交互分析来研究这些关系如何因性别、年龄和社会经济地位而变化。
三种结果与自然环境之间的关系因自然定义、缓冲区大小和缓冲区类型以及社会人口特征而有很大差异。具体而言，当将高社会经济地位的青年与中等社会经济地位的青年进行比较时，较小的圆形缓冲区距离与较少的身体活动有关，但较大的街道网络缓冲区距离与更大的心理健康问题有关。对于社会经济地位较低的青年，这些关系中也存在明显的关系，但模式不太清晰。
对于未来研究自然环境作用的健康研究，我们主张根据潜在的机制制定一个预先的模型，该模型综合考虑地理空间因素（自然定义、缓冲区类型和缓冲区大小）和概念因素（健康结果/行为、样本特征），以理论上为研究中的自然环境与健康结果或行为之间的关系提供依据。
