Socioeconomic Differences in Walking Time of Children and Adolescents to Public Green Spaces in Urban Areas—Results of the German Environmental Survey (2014–2017)

Julia Rehling, Christiane Bunge, Julia Waldhauer and André Conrad
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Julia Rehling: Department Environmental Hygiene, German Environment Agency, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Christiane Bunge: Department Environmental Hygiene, German Environment Agency, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Julia Waldhauer: Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, Robert Koch Institute, 12101 Berlin, Germany
André Conrad: Department Environmental Hygiene, German Environment Agency, 14195 Berlin, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: Public green spaces have a high potential for a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing, especially in urban areas. Studies on environmental justice indicate socially unequal access possibilities to urban green spaces. This article presents results on associations between individual socioeconomic position (SEP) and walking time from home to public green spaces in young people living in urban areas with more than 20,000 inhabitants in Germany. Data were derived from the German Environmental Survey for Children and Adolescents 2014–2017 (GerES V), the environmental module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS Wave 2). The sample comprises 1149 participants aged 3 to 17 years. A total of 51.5% of the participants reach a public green space on foot within five and 72.8% within ten minutes from home. The lower the participant’s SEP, the longer the walking time. Logistic regression models controlling for age group, sex, migration background, and region of residence show that participants with a low SEP have a significantly higher risk (odds ratio = 1.98; 95% confidence interval: 1.31–2.99) of needing more than ten minutes to walk from home to a public green space than participants with a high SEP. GerES V data indicate that young people living in urban areas in Germany do not equally benefit from the health-promoting potential of green spaces, which is an important aspect of environmental health inequalities.

Keywords: environmental justice; public green spaces; health inequalities; environmental inequalities; socioeconomic position (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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