Decision Tree Analyses to Explore the Relevance of Multiple Sex/Gender Dimensions for the Exposure to Green Spaces: Results from the KORA INGER Study

Lisa Dandolo, Christina Hartig, Klaus Telkmann, Sophie Horstmann, Lars Schwettmann, Peter Selsam, Alexandra Schneider, Gabriele Bolte and on behalf of the INGER Study Group
Additional contact information
Lisa Dandolo: Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
Christina Hartig: Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
Klaus Telkmann: Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
Sophie Horstmann: Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
Lars Schwettmann: Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), 85764 Neuherberg, Germany
Peter Selsam: Department Monitoring and Exploration Technologies, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH—UFZ, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Alexandra Schneider: Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), 85764 Neuherberg, Germany
Gabriele Bolte: Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
on behalf of the INGER Study Group: Members as listed below in the Acknowledgments.

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 12, 1-25

Abstract: Recently, attention has been drawn to the need to integrate sex/gender more comprehensively into environmental health research. Considering theoretical approaches, we define sex/gender as a multidimensional concept based on intersectionality. However, operationalizing sex/gender through multiple covariates requires the usage of statistical methods that are suitable for handling such complex data. We therefore applied two different decision tree approaches: classification and regression trees (CART) and conditional inference trees (CIT). We explored the relevance of multiple sex/gender covariates for the exposure to green spaces, measured both subjectively and objectively. Data from 3742 participants from the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) study were analyzed within the INGER (Integrating gender into environmental health research) project. We observed that the participants’ financial situation and discrimination experience was relevant for their access to high quality public green spaces, while the urban/rural context was most relevant for the general greenness in the residential environment. None of the covariates operationalizing the individual sex/gender self-concept were relevant for differences in exposure to green spaces. Results were largely consistent for both CART and CIT. Most importantly we showed that decision tree analyses are useful for exploring the relevance of multiple sex/gender dimensions and their interactions for environmental exposures. Further investigations in larger urban areas with less access to public green spaces and with a study population more heterogeneous with respect to age and social disparities may add more information about the relevance of multiple sex/gender dimensions for the exposure to green spaces.

Keywords: sex; gender; intersectionality; recursive partitioning; subgroup analysis; greenness; normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/12/7476/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/12/7476/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:12:p:7476-:d:841946

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().