Living in a green area can lengthen your life, according to research published today which shows that the difference in life expectancy between rich and poor shrinks among those who live in an environment with parks and trees.
Richard Mitchell, from Glasgow University, and his colleagues, found that the gap between the numbers of deaths of people on high incomes and the numbers of deaths of those on low incomes in green areas was half that compared with figures relating to built-up areas.
Green spaces, classified by the researchers as "open, undeveloped land with natural vegetation", encouraged people to walk and be more active. But exercise in these settings could have greater psychological and physiological benefits than exercise elsewhere, the researchers said.
The benefits potentially go beyond exercise. Studies have shown that being around green spaces can reduce blood pressure and stress levels, and possibly help people heal faster after surgery.
A number of researchers have looked at the effects of greenery on our wellbeing, the paper published in the Lancet noted. But few studies had looked at whether living in green areas reduced health inequalities, the Glasgow team said.
Using information from a land-use database of 2001, the researchers split the pre-retirement population of England into four groups according to income level and deprivation, and five groups according to access to green space. They then looked at mortality data for 2001-2005.
They found that the inequality in mortality from all causes relating to income deprivation was less in those populations in the greenest areas compared with the figures for people living in more built-up places. They found an even stronger relationship when it came to deaths from circulatory disease such as heart conditions and stroke. There was no difference, however, in deaths from lung cancer.
The researchers wrote: "Published work suggests that green space might affect health by inducing beneficial physical activity, and by ameliorating the response to stress. Physical activity and response to stress are components of the cause of circulatory disease and reduction of these factors might have contributed to the lower inequalities that we recorded in greener areas." They concede that there are potential weaknesses of the study. They cannot know, for instance, the quality of the environment or whether everyone in an area gets equal access to the green space.
But the team said that altering the physical environment was an easier way to combat poor health in deprived areas than using media campaigns or giving out information on health. "The implications of the study are clear: environments that promote good health might be crucial in the fight to reduce health inequalities."