ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Residential green space in childhood is associated with lower risk of psychiatric disorders from adolescence into adulthood.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 174 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
174 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Restorative Effects from Green Exposure: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Control Trials.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Growing up green: a systematic review of the influence of greenspace on youth development and health outcomes.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Cities and neuroscience research: A systematic literature review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Is Brief Exposure to Green Space in School the Best Option to Improve Attention in Children?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Life Course Nature Exposure and Mental Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Future Directions.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- The Association between Green Space and Adolescents' Mental Well-Being: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Pooled it
- The Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health: A Systematic Descriptive Review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- Urban and Rural Differences in the Efficacy of a Mobile Health Depression Treatment for Young Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Trial
- A Nature-Based Intervention and Mental Health of Schoolchildren: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2024Trial
- The effect of brief exposure to virtual nature on mental wellbeing in adolescents.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Do Greener Urban Streets Provide Better Emotional Experiences? An Experimental Study on Chinese Tourists.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Impact of outdoor nature-related activities on gut microbiota, fecal serotonin, and perceived stress in preschool children: the Play&Grow randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2020Trial
- The effect of nature on mental health.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Brief virtual nature exposure and acute stress: inconclusive evidence regarding stress reactivity, recovery, and emotion regulation.Journal of environmental psychology · 2026Article
- Nature contact and adolescent paper-reuse behavior: place attachment versus climate anxiety in a two-wave study of Chinese adolescents.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Urban soilUrban forestry & urban greening · 2026Article
- Associations between greenspace and memory: Evidence from the COMPASS cohort in Chicago.Environmental research · 2026Article
- Social deprivation in adolescence and risk of depression in young adulthood: a longitudinal analysis of linked administrative data from Northern Ireland.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Mapping the humanistic care ecosystem in medical education: development and validation of a novel multidimensional instrument (HCS-ME).BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Community severance and mental health-related hospital visits in New York City.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
114 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urban residence is associated with a higher risk of some psychiatric disorders, but the underlying drivers remain unknown. There is increasing evidence that the level of exposure to natural environments impacts mental health, but few large-scale epidemiological studies have assessed the general existence and importance of such associations. Here, we investigate the prospective association between green space and mental health in the Danish population. Green space presence was assessed at the individual level using high-resolution satellite data to calculate the normalized difference vegetation index within a 210 × 210 m square around each person's place of residence (∼1 million people) from birth to the age of 10. We show that high levels of green space presence during childhood are associated with lower risk of a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders later in life. Risk for subsequent mental illness for those who lived with the lowest level of green space during childhood was up to 55% higher across various disorders compared with those who lived with the highest level of green space. The association remained even after adjusting for urbanization, socioeconomic factors, parental history of mental illness, and parental age. Stronger association of cumulative green space presence during childhood compared with single-year green space presence suggests that presence throughout childhood is important. Our results show that green space during childhood is associated with better mental health, supporting efforts to better integrate natural environments into urban planning and childhood life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.