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

Hiromitsu Kobayashi, Chorong Song, Harumi Ikei, Bum-Jin Park, Juyoung Lee, Takahide Kagawa and Yoshifumi Miyazaki
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Hiromitsu Kobayashi: Department of Nursing, Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, 1-1 Gakuendai, Kahoku, Ishikawa 929-1210, Japan
Chorong Song: Center for Environment, Health, and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan
Harumi Ikei: Center for Environment, Health, and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan
Bum-Jin Park: Department of Environment and Forest Resources, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34134, Korea
Juyoung Lee: Department of Landscape Architecture, Hankyong National University, 327 Jungang-ro, Anseong-si, Gyeonggi-do 17579, Korea
Takahide Kagawa: Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan
Yoshifumi Miyazaki: Center for Environment, Health, and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-9

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: forest environment; salivary cortisol; distribution; population approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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