Poster Presentation Women's Health Forum 2021

Impact of Residential Greenspace on the Mental Health of Australian Women. (#49)

Tafzila Akter A Mouly 1 , Luke Knibbs 1 , Gita Mishra 1
  1. School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Herston, QLD, Australia

Greater exposure to greenspace has been suggested as having potential for beneficial effects on mental health, which maybe is suggested to be due to several salutogenic (support human health and well-being) elements and as a buffer to adverse environmental exposures (e.g., air pollution), for example. The overarching aim of the study is to explore the longitudinal association between residential greenspace and mental health in Australian women. We selected the 1973-78 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH). Fourteen thousand two hundred forty-seven women, 18 to 23-year-old in 1996, have been surveyed almost every three years for 23 years of their young adulthood under this cohort. The 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10) and Anxiety subscale of Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Inventory were used to assess depression and anxiety, respectively. Geocoded residential addresses (i.e., latitude and longitude) are available for all surveys. The availability of a geocoded address of survey participants has allowed us to calculate residential greenspace for different buffers centered around their exact home location. Three different quantitative greenspace metrics - normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), fractional cover, the parkland are being used to assess residential greenspace of four buffers – 100m, 500m, 1000m and 3000m. The Generalized estimating equation (GEE) model has been used to find out the association between different greenspace exposure and mental health outcomes. The result of the association between mental health of Australian women and residential greenspace will be presented.