Living Near Urban Woodlands Cuts Antidepressant Use by 10%
Access to Urban Woodlands Linked with Lower Use of Antidepressants
A Scottish study tracking over 129,000 people for five years found that moving within a 10-minute walk of an accessible urban woodland reduced the odds of being prescribed antidepressants by 10% and anti-anxiety medication by 6%. The research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, evaluated Scotland's Woods In and Around Towns program, which has revitalized nearly 30,000 acres of urban woodlands in deprived neighborhoods. Lead author Scott Ogletree of the University of Edinburgh said the results show that modest investments in local green spaces can make a real difference to mental health.
Our results tell us that relatively modest investments in local green spaces can make a real difference to people’s mental health.
- ElijahLynn
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...
The study, linked to from the article.
- AnthonBerg
My catchprase as of late: Everything is pulmonary.
Apropos of nothing.
- ossicones
There's a strange contradiction in the findings, even just those in the abstract. When they look across individuals and try to predict antidepressant use based on exposure to woodlands, they find higher use among those who live closer to woodlands. It's only when they look at individual trajectories that they see reduced antidepressant use lining up with periods where they lived closer to woodlands.
It's almost like the same type of people who use antidepressants also like to live near woodlands. And they get depressed when they don't live near woodlands.