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Living near green spaces could add 2.5 years to your life, new research finds
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Classic case of science "journalism" mixing up correlation and causation. The study only controlled for income in the broadest possible strokes, so in all likelihood, this is just one more study confirming that rich people live longer.
It's possible that the green space lowers cortisol levels, thereby lessening the negative effective of aging, which would also account for the differences in Black vs. white participants (as Black people in America almost uniformly have higher cortisol levels simply because of the higher stress levels experienced by minorities in the US). More study (and rigor) is required to say for certain.
However, this headline is simply not supported by the study.
So it's like the study that showed that having a horse increase your life expectancy by several years ?
Exactly.
It looks like they adjusted for the common cofactors. There could be more they missed, but this study is also backed by a large body of research that found similar effects. You can see some of these other papers in the references.
Probably the effect is driven by several factors including mental well-being, increased social cohesion, reduced air pollution, increased opportunity for exercise, and other things. Frankly, it would be surprising if these things did not have an effect on lifespan.
They did adjust for socioeconomic class very, very broadly, basically by classifying entire neighborhoods as the same SEC. I know that it is incredibly difficult to get really granular, but there are huge gradients of wealth even within the same neighborhood, so it seems presumptive to say "living near green space could add 2.5 years to your life" based on a study that makes generalizations that are that broad.
Exactly. But to say that it's the green space causing these benefits is the thing with which I take issue. And wealth also increases access to all of these resources/benefits.