Residential Greenspace Is Associated with Lower Levels of Depressive and Burnout Symptoms, and Higher Levels of Life Satisfaction: A Nationwide Population-Based Study in Sweden

Yannick Klein, Petra Lindfors, Walter Osika, Linda L. Magnusson Hanson and Cecilia U. D. Stenfors
Additional contact information
Yannick Klein: Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden
Petra Lindfors: Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden
Walter Osika: Center for Social Sustainability, Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institute, 141 83 Huddinge, Sweden
Linda L. Magnusson Hanson: Stress Research Institute, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden
Cecilia U. D. Stenfors: Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: Population-based studies of individual-level residential greenspace and mental health outcomes are still limited. Thus, the present study investigates greenspace–mental health associations—including depressive symptoms, burnout symptoms, and life satisfaction—in a population-based sample of adults, the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, in 2016 ( n = 14,641). High-resolution land cover of greenspace and green–blue-space was assessed at 50, 100, 300 and 500 m buffers around residential addresses. Higher residential greenspace and green–blue-space were associated with lower levels of depressive and burnout symptoms among non-working individuals and with higher life satisfaction in the whole study population, after controlling for age, sex, individual income, and neighborhood socioeconomics. The immediate residential-surrounding environment (50 m) consistently showed the strongest associations with the outcomes. Having a partner was associated with better mental health outcomes and with having more residential greenspace, and adjusting for this rendered greenspace–health associations mostly statistically non-significant. In conclusion, higher levels of greenspace and green–blue-space in the immediate residential-surrounding environment were associated with better mental health outcomes in the present study, which contributes additional nuances to prior studies. The importance of residential greenspace for public health, urban planning, and development is discussed.

Keywords: green infrastructure; urban; nature; mental health; epidemiological studies; city-planning; sustainable environments (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 (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5668/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5668/ (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:9:p:5668-:d:809999

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 ().