A series of problems caused by rapid urbanization have a negative impact on the mental health of residents.As an essential health intervention,green spaces facilitate resident exposure to the natural environment and relieve mental stress.However,existing studies mainly use cross-sectional data,making it difficult to reveal the causal relationship between green space and mental health.In addition,few studies focused on the differences in the mental health effect of green space among different social groups.Therefore,we used a natural experiment approach to explore the impact of a large-scale greenway intervention—the East Lake Greenway in Wuhan,China—on residents'mental health.We collected data from the health effect questionnaires in 2016 and 2019(before and after the intervention)among residents living around the greenway,used the difference-in-differences model to explore the causal relationship between green space intervention and residents'mental health changes,and combined stratified analysis to reveal differences in the causal effect of green space on mental health across various social groups.The results show that:1)The green space intervention significantly promoted the improvement of mental health for the experimental group.2)The causal effect of green space intervention on residents'mental health was not significantly different among groups with different gender and education levels,but there were significant differences among groups with different occupations and income levels,indicating that the greenspace intervention has significantly improved the mental health of the unemployed,low-income,and low-middle income groups.Overall,the construction of large green spaces can effectively improve the mental health of surrounding residents,especially for disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed and low-income groups.Green space interventions are critical for improving the mental health of residents and alleviating inequalities in mental health benefits due to differences in socioeconomic status.
green spacemental healthcausal effectinequalities in health benefitsnatural experiment
维普
万方数据
