Department of Public Health and Pediatrics, University of Torino, Torino, Italy.
Post Graduate School of Medical Statistics, University of Torino, Torino, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 18;10:1050533. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1050533. eCollection 2022.
Adolescence is a critical period of life, and the level of wellbeing acquired during this stage might have an influence on health status in adulthood. The wellbeing of adolescents is associated with both biological and environmental determinants. To date, few studies have evaluated the effect of exposure to urban green spaces (i.e., greenness) on adolescents' wellbeing. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the association between exposure to greenness and the wellbeing of adolescents, accounting for the level of urbanization surrounding schools.
In the frame of the 2018 Italian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), we analyzed cross-sectional data from the Piedmont Region. Exposure to greenness was quantified by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Schools were geocoded, and a fixed buffer (radius 1,500 m) centered on each school was then built to enable average NDVI calculations. Adolescents' wellbeing was assessed by self-reported psychological, somatic, and psychosomatic health complaints as follows. Respondents were asked how often, in the last 6 months, they had experienced: (a) headache, (b) stomachache, (c) backache, (d) dizziness, (e) feeling low, (f) irritability or bad temper, (g) feeling nervous, and (h) difficulties getting to sleep using the HBSC Symptom Checklist (HBSC-SCL), an eight-item tool. Multivariable, multilevel logistic regression models tested the association between exposure to NDVI and psychosomatic, somatic, and psychological health complaints, one at a time, using schools as a random intercept.
In total, 2065 subjects (47.6% girls) aged 11 (48.4%) and 13 (51.6%) years were involved. Greenness was found to be inversely associated with reported psychosomatic (OR 0.72, 95% CI: 0.53-0.98) and psychological health complaints (OR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.49-0.92) in boys only, adjusting for age, urbanization level, and socioeconomic status, and stratifying by gender.
Our results support the implementation of future policies for urban environmental design supporting the increase of green spaces, as suggested by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings.
青春期是人生的关键时期，在此期间获得的幸福感水平可能会对成年后的健康状况产生影响。青少年的幸福感与生物和环境决定因素都有关。迄今为止，很少有研究评估暴露于城市绿地（即绿色空间）对青少年幸福感的影响。因此，本研究旨在评估暴露于绿色空间与青少年幸福感之间的关系，并考虑到学校周围的城市化水平。
在 2018 年意大利青少年健康行为调查（HBSC）的框架内，我们分析了皮埃蒙特地区的横断面数据。绿色空间的暴露程度通过归一化植被指数（NDVI）进行量化。对学校进行地理编码，然后在每个学校的中心建立一个固定缓冲区（半径 1500 米），以计算平均 NDVI。青少年的幸福感通过自我报告的心理、躯体和身心健康问题来评估，具体如下。要求受访者回答在过去 6 个月中，他们经常出现以下哪种情况：（a）头痛，（b）胃痛，（c）背痛，（d）头晕，（e）情绪低落，（f）易怒或脾气暴躁，（g）紧张，（h）难以入睡。使用 HBSC 症状检查表（HBSC-SCL）作为工具，回答此问题。该工具包含八个项目，用于评估身心、躯体和心理健康问题。多变量、多层次逻辑回归模型一次测试了暴露于 NDVI 与身心、躯体和心理健康问题之间的关联，使用学校作为随机截距。
共涉及 2065 名受试者（47.6%为女孩），年龄为 11 岁（48.4%）和 13 岁（51.6%）。在男孩中，调整年龄、城市化水平和社会经济地位，并按性别分层后，发现绿色空间与报告的身心（OR 0.72，95%CI：0.53-0.98）和心理（OR 0.67，95%CI：0.49-0.92）健康问题呈负相关。
我们的研究结果支持联合国可持续发展目标提出的实施未来城市环境设计政策，以支持增加绿色空间。需要进一步的研究来证实我们的发现。
