Vivian Fong
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Peter Larson
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Institute of Social Research/School of Public Health/SEAS / Other
Program: CG
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Authors: Vic Fong, Peter S. Larson
Abstract
Introduction: Climate change and environmental degradation as a result of human activity have significant current and future negative consequences, including on human health, natural ecosystems, and social/environmental justice. Research shows that communities of lower socioeconomic status and communities of color, as well as residents of developing countries, are disproportionately affected. However, greenspace such as public parks etc, could mitigate the most serious impacts of air pollution on physical and mental health. Our goals include surveying the existing literature on greenspace and mental health and testing for associations of air pollution and mental health indicators and specifically examining how that association changes given exposure to greenspace. Methods: To measure greenspace, we use a dataset of latitude and longitude locations of planted trees collected from major cities in the United States. We then count the number of trees within each zip code tabulation area (ZCTA) within the City Limits of Detroit, MI. We use data on mental health related mortality from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), counting up all deaths within each ZCTA for the years of 2006 through 2016. Finally, we calculate mean counts of particulate matter (PM2.5) from a raster data set. We will use regression methods to test for associations of pollution with mental health indicators, testing for interactions between areas with ZCTA level tree counts and PM2.5 exposure. Results: We found that tree cover varies by ZCTA, with the numbers of trees being positively associated with white race and ZCTA level median income. Even when controlling for median income, however, we found that mental health related mortality was positively associated with greenspace in the City of Detroit. Results with PM2.5 are pending at this time. Discussion/Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest that the picture of mental health related mortality and greenspace might be more complicated that initially assumed. The positive associtaions between greenspace and mental health related mortality could reflect underlying racial disparities in the recording of mental health in vital records, but might also relect known disparities in the etiology of mental health between white and Black groups. More work needs to be done to determine how improving accessibility and quality of urban green spaces may be helpful in either directly removing air pollution from these areas or reversing/mitigating the negative health consequences of pollution exposure.
