Neighbourhood and path-based greenspace in three European countries: associations with objective physical activity

BMC Public Health

Dimitris Chapizanis¹  Denis Sarigiannis¹  Spyros Karakitsios¹  Susanne Steinle²  Miranda Loh²  William Mueller³  Sotiris Vardoulakis⁴  Paul Wilkinson⁵  James Milner⁵  Thomas Maggos⁶  Asimina Stamatelopoulou⁶  Eelco Kuijpers⁷  Anjoeka Pronk⁷  Eija Parmes⁸  Luc Cluitmans⁸  Juha Pärkkä⁸ 

[1] Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece;Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, UK;Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, UK;London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK;Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, UK;National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia;London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK;National Centre for Scientific Research ‘Demokritos’, Athens, Greece;TNO, Netherlands;VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland;

关键词: Greenspace;    Physical activity;    Exposure;    Walking;    Cycling;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-021-10259-0

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundGreenspace has been associated with health benefits in many contexts. An important pathway may be through outdoor physical activity. We use a novel approach to examine the link between greenspace microenvironments and outdoor physical activity levels in the HEALS study conducted in Edinburgh (UK), the Netherlands, and Athens and Thessaloniki (Greece).MethodsUsing physical activity tracker recordings, 118 HEALS participants with young children were classified with regard to daily minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA); 60 were classified with regard to the metabolic equivalent task (MET)-minutes for each of the 1014 active trips they made. Greenspace indicators were generated for Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), tree cover density (TCD), and green land use (GLU). We employed linear mixed-effects models to analyse (1) daily MVPA in relation to greenspace within 300 m and 1000 m of residential addresses and (2) trip MET-minutes in relation to average greenspace within a 50 m buffer of walking/cycling routes. Models were adjusted for activity, walkability, bluespace, age, sex, car ownership, dog ownership, season, weekday/weekend day, and local meteorology.ResultsThere was no clear association between MVPA-minutes and any residential greenspace measure. For example, in fully adjusted models, a 10 percentage point increase in NDVI within 300 m of home was associated with a daily increase of 1.14 (95% CI − 0.41 to 2.70) minutes of MVPA. However, we did find evidence to indicate greenspace markers were positively linked to intensity and duration of activity: in fully adjusted models, 10 percentage point increases in trip NDVI, TCD, and GLU were associated with increases of 10.4 (95% CI: 4.43 to 16.4), 10.6 (95% CI: 4.96 to 16.3), and 3.36 (95% CI: 0.00 to 6.72) MET-minutes, respectively. The magnitude of associations with greenspace tended to be greater for cycling.ConclusionsMore strenuous or longer walking and cycling trips occurred in environments with more greenspace, but levels of residential greenspace did not have a clear link with outdoor MVPA. To build on our research, we suggest future work examine larger, more diverse populations and investigate the influence of greenspace for trip purpose and route preference.

【 授权许可】

CC BY