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Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades

Across the United States, cities are creating sustainability and climate action plans (CAPs) that call to increase local vegetation. These greening initiatives have the potential to not only benefit the environment but also human health. In epidemiologic literature, greenness has a protective effect...

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Autores principales: Brochu, Paige, Jimenez, Marcia P., James, Peter, Kinney, Patrick L., Lane, Kevin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35619828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.841936
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author Brochu, Paige
Jimenez, Marcia P.
James, Peter
Kinney, Patrick L.
Lane, Kevin
author_facet Brochu, Paige
Jimenez, Marcia P.
James, Peter
Kinney, Patrick L.
Lane, Kevin
author_sort Brochu, Paige
collection PubMed
description Across the United States, cities are creating sustainability and climate action plans (CAPs) that call to increase local vegetation. These greening initiatives have the potential to not only benefit the environment but also human health. In epidemiologic literature, greenness has a protective effect on mortality through various direct and indirect pathways. We aimed to assess how an increase in greenness could decrease mortality in the largest urban areas in the United States. We conducted a nationwide quantitative health impact assessment to estimate the predicted reduction in mortality associated with an increase in greenness across two decades (2000, 2010, and 2019). Using a recently published exposure-response function, Landsat 30 m 16-day satellite imagery from April to September, and publicly available county-level mortality data from the CDC, we calculated the age-adjusted reduction in all-cause mortality for those 65 years and older within 35 of the most populated metropolitan areas. We estimated that between 34,000 and 38,000 all-cause deaths could have been reduced in 2000, 2010, and 2019 with a local increase in green vegetation by 0.1 unit across the most populated metropolitan areas. We found that overall greenness increased across time with a 2.86% increase from 2000 to 2010 to 11.11% from 2010 to 2019. These results can be used to support CAPs by providing a quantitative assessment to the impact local greening initiatives can have on mortality. Urban planners and local governments can use these findings to calculate the co-benefits of local CAPs through a public health lens and support policy development.
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spelling pubmed-91275752022-05-25 Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades Brochu, Paige Jimenez, Marcia P. James, Peter Kinney, Patrick L. Lane, Kevin Front Public Health Public Health Across the United States, cities are creating sustainability and climate action plans (CAPs) that call to increase local vegetation. These greening initiatives have the potential to not only benefit the environment but also human health. In epidemiologic literature, greenness has a protective effect on mortality through various direct and indirect pathways. We aimed to assess how an increase in greenness could decrease mortality in the largest urban areas in the United States. We conducted a nationwide quantitative health impact assessment to estimate the predicted reduction in mortality associated with an increase in greenness across two decades (2000, 2010, and 2019). Using a recently published exposure-response function, Landsat 30 m 16-day satellite imagery from April to September, and publicly available county-level mortality data from the CDC, we calculated the age-adjusted reduction in all-cause mortality for those 65 years and older within 35 of the most populated metropolitan areas. We estimated that between 34,000 and 38,000 all-cause deaths could have been reduced in 2000, 2010, and 2019 with a local increase in green vegetation by 0.1 unit across the most populated metropolitan areas. We found that overall greenness increased across time with a 2.86% increase from 2000 to 2010 to 11.11% from 2010 to 2019. These results can be used to support CAPs by providing a quantitative assessment to the impact local greening initiatives can have on mortality. Urban planners and local governments can use these findings to calculate the co-benefits of local CAPs through a public health lens and support policy development. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9127575/ /pubmed/35619828 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.841936 Text en Copyright © 2022 Brochu, Jimenez, James, Kinney and Lane. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Brochu, Paige
Jimenez, Marcia P.
James, Peter
Kinney, Patrick L.
Lane, Kevin
Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title_full Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title_fullStr Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title_full_unstemmed Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title_short Benefits of Increasing Greenness on All-Cause Mortality in the Largest Metropolitan Areas of the United States Within the Past Two Decades
title_sort benefits of increasing greenness on all-cause mortality in the largest metropolitan areas of the united states within the past two decades
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35619828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.841936
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