Numerous studies document a positive link between urban greenspace and mental health. This current study adds to the literature by focusing on adolescents, an underrepresented group in this research, and by considering “activity spaces” as potential environments for exposure to urban greenspace. Most previous studies on greenspace and mental health used measures of residential greenspace. This study recognizes that actual exposure to greenspace can occur, not only at the home location, but throughout an individual's activity space -- "the routine places visited throughout daily life.”
This study used Geographic Ecological Momentary Assessment (GEMA) to investigate the association between greenspace and psychological stress experienced by urban youth in their activity spaces. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) involves the repeated sampling of an individual's behaviors, moods, and experiences in real time and in a subject's natural environment. The EMA process often uses brief surveys over a mobile phone to collect data. GEMA -- the process used for this study -- integrated conventional EMA with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to investigate the synchronous greenspace-stress association. The aim of the study was to determine if exposure to urban greenspace was associated with lower stress among urban, primarily African American, adolescents. The study also investigated the possible influence of individual adolescent characteristics and environmental context on the association between greenspace exposure and stress.
This study was conducted over a two-year period and involved 179 adolescents (age 13-14). The adolescents used mobile phones with embedded GPS to respond to a brief EMA survey delivered by text message. The survey was administered 3–6 times per day over a four-day period every other month for 24 months. The survey asked participants to self-report the level of stress they were experiencing at the moment. They were asked to respond on a scale of 1 (“Not at all stressed out”) to 9 (“Very stressed out”).
Results indicate that urban greenspace is associated with reduced psychological stress for adolescents, but only when the adolescent is away from home. In the “away-from-home” areas, the extent of stress reduction was greater in areas high in greenspace exposure. This greenspace-stress association did not differ by gender, neighborhood disadvantage, season of the year, or emotional dysregulation (a feature of many mood disorders affecting emotional and behavioral responses to contextual stimuli).
These findings have important implications for urban development policies, in that greenspace infrastructure is shown to have an impact on the health of people living in the city. Based on the fact that minorities and people with low income tend to live in areas with less greenspace, addressing greenspace-exposure inequities is also recognized as a social justice issue.
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