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Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2018) | Viewed by 39871

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xiaoqi Feng

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Guest Editor

1. Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
2. Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Interests: green space; epidemiology; population health and wellbeing

Prof. Dr. Thomas Astell-Burt

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Guest Editor

Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), School of Health and Society, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Interests: population health; environmental data science; restorative environments; urban greening
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

By 2050, Asia will be home to half the world’s urban population. Cities can serve as engines of growth, innovation, poverty amelioration and advances in population health and wellbeing. However, their rapid socioeconomically-uneven expansion outwards and upwards can also perpetuate and redistribute social and health inequities, increase disadvantage and harm the environment in multiple ways. Urban green spaces, which are often threatened by rapid urbanisation, are widely viewed as having a range of health benefits for city dwellers. Urban green spaces are said to be therapeutic and stress relieving, attractive settings to meet people and engage in outdoor recreation, and helping to keep air cooler and cleaner. But the vast majority of this evidence comes from cities in Western counties that are not experiencing comparable rates of expansion to their counterparts in the Asia-Pacific. This Special Issue is concerned with enhancing understandings of the effects, positive and negative, of urban green space on health and wellbeing in Asia-Pacific cities. Theoretical and empirical contributions focussing on any stage of the lifecourse, from birth through to the senior years, are welcome. We encourage a range of paper types including case studies and field experiments through to epidemiological studies and spatial investigations.

Dr. Xiaoqi Feng
Prof. Dr. Thomas Astell-Burt
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Asia-Pacific
Green space
Cities
Birth outcomes
Child development
Healthy ageing
Mental health
Dementia
Obesity
Diabetes

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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11 pages, 826 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of Residential Greenness and Nearby Parks on Respiratory and Allergic Diseases among Middle School Adolescents in a Chinese City

by Linyan Li, Jaime E. Hart, Brent A. Coull, Shi-jie Cao, John D. Spengler and Gary Adamkiewicz

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(6), 991; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060991 - 19 Mar 2019

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 3725

Abstract

Research on the health impacts of green environments has mainly been conducted in developed countries. Differences in the urban forms between China and Western countries make it essential to understand the role of greenspace in Chinese settings. From 2014 to 2015, middle school students (n = 5643) in Suzhou, China were enrolled in a study on the health effect of residential greenness. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and distance to the nearest park were calculated for each home address. Logistic regression was performed to test associations between exposure and self-reported doctor diagnoses of asthma, pneumonia, rhinitis, and eczema, adjusting for important confounders. No statistically significant associations were observed for any seasonal NDVI-based measures. However, the proximity of the participants’ residences to the closest park showed an inverse relationship to reported symptoms. The odds ratios for the furthest quartile compared to the closest quartile based on the distance to the nearest park were 0.58 (95% CI: 0.35, 0.99), 0.70 (95% CI: 0.50, 0.96), 0.92 (95% CI: 0.74, 1.15), 0.97 (95% CI: 0.76, 1.24), 0.86 (95% CI: 0.68, 1.10) for current asthma, ever asthma, ever pneumonia, ever rhinitis, and ever eczema, respectively. These findings focused on a single Chinese city and suggest that exposure to natural vegetation in urban areas may affect health through various pathways. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific)

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18 pages, 1323 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Associations between Urban Green Spaces and Health are Dependent on the Analytical Scale and How Urban Green Spaces are Measured

by Liqing Zhang and Puay Yok Tan

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(4), 578; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16040578 - 16 Feb 2019

Cited by 58 | Viewed by 7096

Abstract

Although the benefits from exposure to urban green spaces (UGS) are increasingly reported, there are important knowledge gaps in the nature of UGS-health relationships. One such unknown area is the dependence of UGS-health associations on the types of UGS studied, the way they are quantified, and the spatial scale used in the analysis. These knowledge gaps have important ramifications on our ability to develop generalizations to promote implementation and facilitate comparative studies across different socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts. We conducted a study in Singapore to examine the dependence of UGS-health associations on the metrics for quantifying UGS (vegetation cover, canopy cover and park area) in different types of buffer area (circular, nested and network) at different spatial scales. A population-based household survey (n = 1000) was used to collect information on self-reported health and perception and usage pattern of UGS. The results showed that although all three UGS metrics were positively related to mental health at certain scales, overall, canopy cover showed the strongest associations with mental health at most scales. There also appears to be minimum and maximum threshold levels of spatial scale at which UGS and health have significant associations, with the strongest associations consistently shown between 400 m to 1600 m in different buffer types. We discuss the significance of these results for UGS-health studies and applications in UGS planning for improved health of urban dwellers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific)

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14 pages, 4343 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Window View and the Brain: Effects of Floor Level and Green Cover on the Alpha and Beta Rhythms in a Passive Exposure EEG Experiment

by Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo, Nicolas Escoffier, Jane Chan and Tan Puay Yok

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(11), 2358; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15112358 - 25 Oct 2018

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5117

Abstract

With the growing interest among researchers, practitioners, and urban decision makers in the influence of the built environment on peoples’ health, there is increasing emphasis on using scientific knowledge to inform urban design, including methods of neuroscience. As window views are the most immediate medium of visual connection with one’s neighbourhood, we surmised that the quality of this view would have an impact on the mental health and well-being of urban dwellers. Accordingly, we investigated how window views taken from different floors of a high-rise block with varying extents of green cover affected 29 healthy residents in an exploratory electroencephalography (EEG) experiment. The results showed that the amount of green cover within the view captured at different floor levels can cause an important interaction effect on the frontal alpha and temporal beta brain oscillations while participants view photographs. These results suggest that the brainwave patterns commonly associated with positive emotional states, motivation, and visual attention mechanisms may be increased by the extent of green cover within the view. This phenomenon seems more pronounced on the higher than lower floors. The observed findings at this stage cannot confirm major effects between floor level, green cover, and brainwaves, however, they emphasize the importance of considering the quality of window views in the planning and design of urban high-rise neighbourhoods. Having a green window view can potentially contribute to the mental health and well-being of urban dwellers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific)

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14 pages, 2504 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Detailed Assessment of the Spatial Distribution of Urban Parks According to Day and Travel Mode Based on Web Mapping API: A Case Study of Main Parks in Wuhan

by Qiang Niu, Ye Wang, Yuan Xia, Hao Wu and Xi Tang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(8), 1725; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15081725 - 11 Aug 2018

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 4528

Abstract

This article employs two indexes—accessibility and effective service ratio (ESR)—to assess the spatial distribution of urban parks with the consideration of both equity and efficiency. Traditional approaches to calculate these two indexes are often based on the shortest distance to the park within its service radius by network analysis. Such approaches cannot reflect the actual travel behaviors of urban residents and require extensive data collection of road networks and complex parameter setting. To avoid these defects, this study directly acquires travel time data for various travel modes in a specific time period to the park through web mapping API (Application Program Interface), then calculates the accessibility and ESR of urban parks based on these detailed data. This method gets closer to actual park usage situation and avoids the cumbersome process of road network model building. At last, a case study is conducted on the assessment of spatial distribution of main parks in Wuhan, finding that districts with poor park accessibility in Wuhan can be divided into three types: districts with an absence of parks, districts with an insufficiency with parks, and districts separated from parks by traffic. Then, pertinent improvement suggestions are proposed, which provide some bases for decisions on future park planning and construction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific)

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Other

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15 pages, 5530 KiB

Open AccessPerspective

Modern Compact Cities: How Much Greenery Do We Need?

by Alessio Russo and Giuseppe T. Cirella

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(10), 2180; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102180 - 05 Oct 2018

Cited by 155 | Viewed by 18852

Abstract

The modern compact city is identified as a high-density and mixed-use pattern. Its features are believed to contribute to a form of functional urban design that supports sustainability and, restresses, the importance of ecosystem services. Urban green space (UGS) plays a vital role in the design and impact on how compact cities have developed and triggered a scientific discord on the amount of greenery individuals require and to what extent contemporary approaches address the question. Research points to at least 9 m² of green space per individual with an ideal UGS value of 50 m² per capita. An examination on the perception, use, quality, accessibility and health risks of urban green and blue spaces is explored, alongside the availability of novel UGS and greenery-related approaches that investigate compact city design and planning for health and wellbeing. The amount of ‘green’ and relating UGS availability in cities indicates vital knowledge modern compact cities must consider. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greener Cities and Healthier Lives in the Asia Pacific)

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