Population-Based Study on the Effect of a Forest Environment on Salivary Cortisol Concentration

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Chorong Song¹  Yoshifumi Miyazaki¹  Harumi Ikei¹  Bum-Jin Park²  Juyoung Lee³  Hiromitsu Kobayashi⁴  Takahide Kagawa⁵ 

[1] Center for Environment, Health, and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan;Department of Environment and Forest Resources, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34134, Korea;Department of Landscape Architecture, Hankyong National University, 327 Jungang-ro, Anseong-si, Gyeonggi-do 17579, Korea;Department of Nursing, Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, 1-1 Gakuendai, Kahoku, Ishikawa 929-1210, Japan;Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan;

关键词: forest environment;    salivary cortisol;    distribution;    population approach;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph14080931

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a forest environment on salivary cortisol concentration, particularly on the characteristics of its distribution. The participants were 348 young male subjects. The experimental sites were 34 forests and 34 urban areas across Japan. The subjects viewed the landscape (forest or urban environment) for a period of 15 min while sitting in a chair. Saliva was sampled from the participants at the end of this 15-min period and then analyzed for cortisol concentration. Differences in the skewness and kurtosis of the distributions between the two environments were tested by performing a permutation test. The cortisol concentrations exhibited larger skewness (0.76) and kurtosis (3.23) in a forest environment than in an urban environment (skewness = 0.49; kurtosis = 2.47), and these differences were statistically significant. The cortisol distribution exhibited a more peaked and longer right-tailed curve in a forest environment than in an urban environment.

【 授权许可】

Unknown