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An 11-year study of 24 California cities suggests that more compact and connected street networks with fewer lanes on the major roads are correlated with reduced rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and...

Marshall, Wesley E., Daniel P. Piatkowski, and Norman W. Garrick. (2014). Community design, street networks, and public health. Journal of Transport & Health, 1(4), 326-340.

Children who play surrounded by elements like logs and flowers show increased levels of physical activity, according to a University of Tennessee study that looked at behavior before and after a traditional...

Coe, D. P., J. I. Flynn, D. L. Wolff, S. N. Scott, and S. Durham. (2014). Children’s Physical Activity Levels and Utilization of a Traditional versus Natural Playground. Children Youth and Environments, 24(3), 1-15.

More at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121011135036.htm

A study of 905 Massachusetts middle schools between 2006 and 2012 found that schools with greener surroundings, particularly in the spring, were correlated with higher school-wide performance on standardized English...

Wu, Chih-Da, Eileen McNeely, J. G. Cedeno-Laurent, Wen-Chi Pan, Gary Adamkiewicz, Francesca Dominici, Shih-Chun Candice Lung, Huey-Jen Su, and John D. Spengler. (2014). Linking student performance in Massachusetts elementary schools with the “greenness” of school surroundings using remote sensing.

Green schoolyards can reduce stress, promote resilience, build competence, and promote focusing in students aged 6-18, as shown by this ethnographic study in Maryland and Colorado. The green schoolyards included a...

Chawla, Louise, Kelly Keena, Illène Pevec, and Emily Stanley. (2014). Green schoolyards as havens from stress and resources for resilience in childhood and adolescence. Health & place, 28, 1-13.

In a study of 427 children aged 10-11 in Bristol, UK, children who spent more time outdoors after school were more likely to be physically active. For every hour spent outside playing with friends, the children...

Pearce, Matthew, Angie S. Page, Tom P. Griffin, and Ashley R. Cooper. (2014) Who children spend time with after school: Associations with objectively recorded indoor and outdoor physical activity. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 11(1). 45. doi:10.1186/1479-5868-11-45

A 5-year longitudinal study in Great Britain found that moving to a greener area not only improves people's mental health, but that the effect is sustained for a long time. Individuals who moved to greener areas had...

Alcock, Ian, Mathew P. White, Benedict W. Wheeler, Lora E. Fleming, and Michael H. Depledge. (2014). Longitudinal effects on mental health of moving to greener and less green urban areas. Environmental Science & Technology, 48(2), 1247-1255.

The greening of three middle school schoolyards in Austria reduced students’ physiological stress levels and enhanced their psychological well-being. Students perceived the schoolyard to be more restorative...

Kelz, Christina, Gary W. Evans, and Kathrin Röderer. (2013). The restorative effects of redesigning the schoolyard: A multi-methodological, quasi-experimental study in rural Austrian middle schools. Environment and Behavior, 47(2), 119-139.

People place more value on the future after exposure to nature. The results of three studies—two laboratory experiments and a field study—reveal future discount rates 10-16% lower after nature exposure than after...

van der Wal, Arianne J., Hannah M. Schade, Lydia Krabbendam, and Mark van Vugt. (2013). Do natural landscapes reduce future discounting in humans? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, 280(1773). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2295

Data collected from 1990 to 2007 suggests that loss of trees to the emerald ash borer increased human mortality related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness. Across the 15 states in the study area...

Donovan, Geoffrey H., David T. Butry, Yvonne L. Michael, Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Andrew M. Liebhold, Demetrios Gatziolis, and Megan Y. Mao. (2013). The relationship between trees and human health: Evidence from the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. American Journal of Public Health 44(2), 139-145.

Exposure to green space can be associated with stress reduction and increased meditation as indicated by a 2013 Edinburgh study that used portable electroencephalograms (EEGs) to analyze brain wave patterns. Each...

Aspinall, Peter, Richard Coyne, Panagiotis Mavros, and Jenny Roe. (2013). The urban brain: Analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091877

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