Natural environments and perceived health in Metro Vancouver, Canada

Background: Growing evidence demonstrates the health benefits of natural environments (NE), but the effect of different NE types remains relatively unexplored. This study assesses the association between perceived health and different types of NEs by analysing both access (i.e., living within proximity to a public park) and exposure (i.e., high percentage of NE in residential neighbourhood).

Methods: We used data from the 2013-2014 Canadian Community Health Survey (n=5,881) on self-reported general and mental health in the last year (5-point ordinal scale from poor to excellent). NE was estimated using a land cover map of Metro Vancouver with 13 classifications, including deciduous trees, conifers, grasses, shrubs, and water. Access was defined as living within 300m of a public park (≥ 1 hectare) and exposure as the percentage of each land cover type within several buffer zones of residential postal codes. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to analyse associations between self-reported general and mental health and access and exposure to NE respectively.

Results: Exposure to water was significantly associated with a lower odds of self-reported poor general health, adjusted for confounders (OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.96, 0.99). A similar association was found for exposure to some vegetation types, but no consistent trends were found across buffer zones for strength of association by vegetation type. No significant associations were found for access to public parks.

Conclusions: This study confirms previous studies showing health effects of water and that daily life exposure to NE may be more important than access to public parks. Further research is needed to establish causality and to expand the knowledge on different NEs’ effect on human health.