It's certainly not the first study to link exposure to nature with better mental and physical health. The Williams piece reviews some of the research on stress hormone levels, which can affect both our mental and longterm physical health. Studies have shown that gazing out a window
at a natural environment can improve recovery from gallbladder surgery and exposure to tree canopy has positive correlation with improved birth outcomes for pregnant women. But research with large sampled sizes and control over other variables have been rare.This study takes advantage of the major destruction of ash trees by an invasive insect, the Emerald Ash Borer
Introduced in Michigan and discovered about a decade ago, EAB has spread out across the midwest as people moved infected nursery stock and infected fire wood, as well as it's slow independent advance on forests. This resulted in a patchwork distribution of the dying trees. The midwest has lost more than 100 million trees lost so far, and more to come as the EAB continues to spread. Because of the patchy distribution of ash tree mortality, Donovan et al were able to compare data across 15 states and thousands of counties, controlling for other demographic variables, including income and race.
Spending time in this snowy forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula reduced my stress significantly. Photo thanks to Erin Luhmann.
They found that across the entire infested area, the "borer was associated with an additional 6113 deaths related to illness of the lower respiratory system, and 15,080 cardiovascular-related deaths," from 1990 to 2007. The relationship appears to be particularly strong in higher income areas- perhaps because there tends to be more tree cover in wealthier neighborhoods to begin with. As an observational study, there are certainly limitations to this research, but the finding seem to stand up to some basic scrutiny. To test their model, they also used the accidental death data for the same period, because there is no mechanism for the EAB to influence accidental death rates, and found no correlations.
But how would tree loss lead to increased mortality from heart and respiratory disease? This study only provides some ideas suggested by other researcher on the links between exposure to nature and human health.
Further research needed. Not a surprising conclusion. But given the complexity of both human health and forest ecology, there's a lot remaining to sort out here.Read full by By at:Results do not provide any direct insight into how trees might improve mortality rates related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness. However, there are several plausible mechanisms including improving air quality, reducing stress, increasing physical activity, moderating temperature, and buffering stressful life events. Future research could fruitfully investigate the possible mechanisms linking the natural environment and health.
http://kateprengaman.com/need-for-nature/