In Week Two, the lecture session focused on the global burden of disease. In seminar, you began working on Assignment One by exploring the topic of site analysis and conducting a mini site analysis of your own.
The sole required reading for this week is the World Health Organization’s 2016 overview of the evidence on urban greenspaces and health. Additional readings that might interest you include the brief report in Nature on the effect of urban environments on social stress processing, which includes some fascinating functional MRI images.
As we begin to delve more deeply into the concept of population health, how do you see your role in improving your own health and that of the people around you?
And as you begin to conduct your own site analysis efforts, what different approaches may be needed to address the elements of site analysis we brainstormed together? Are there any questions you’d like to answer but face obstacles in doing so?
I would say my role in improving my own health is definitely making sure my living environment is “zen” like, as cheesy as it sounds. I think you need to bring the outdoors, in and I strongly stand behind this because I live in a basement apartment I noticed the air quality and my mood definitely decreased over the season. So, I started bringing in more natural light like a Himalayan bath salt lamp which produces negative ions to your living space which increases your mood and gives off a more natural sun light instead of artificial, I also find plants are a great way to make your room more healthy feeling. As for others, it is good to make sure that since we learn so much about how the outdoors increases your mental health that we should spread our awareness to others, so I frequently suggest to my friends when they feel stressed, or upset to take a walk in the fresh air and expose themselves to some sort of green space.
As we were discussing in class on Tuesday about the diseases our grandparents dealt with versus what we see today, it is sort of like an epidemic (one source, one disease, one treatment) versus a silent, subtle progression often very hidden and intertwined in our system (ex. capitalism and our growing greed leading to excessive pollution or how our cities are laid out that determine not only our carbon footprint but how we get around and the (lack of) physical activity such activity consists of) that arguably can be causation and correlation depending on your perspective but in the long-run, causes greater mortality and damage as a whole…silent yet very very deadly.
How big of a role does perception play in relationship to the positive effects we get from green spaces?
In my career as an urban planner, I hope to be able to apply some of the principles that I am learning in Urban Forestry to create urban spaces conducive to healthy, active, balanced and mindful lifestyles through integrating nature into the built environment. In this week’s discussion of urban forests as health resources for promoting health and preventing chronic disease, I am beginning to see how our society is suffering from very systematic problems through environments that encourage far too much sitting, stress, and unhealthy eating. Urban forests and interaction with nature have the power to reverse these systematic problems and relieve people from the “trapped” feeling that living in the 21st century creates. I was especially saddened to hear that depressive and mental diseases will become the leading cause of death throughout my lifetime, and I believe that access to nature can significantly impact positive mental health. In any way possible, I hope that integrating nature into everyday life will be at the forefront of the urban planning agenda as cities continue to grow and technology continues to bind us into sterile, stressful, and unhealthy lives.
In the reading it mentioned that more green space in an area raises the property value of the surrounding houses and buildings. It is also known that in Vancouver, the areas with less green space are poorer. So, does adding greenery to the areas with less of it actually help the poor community?
When the instructor mentioned the public balls for parks, I was quite curious about whether they sterilize the balls after using i to prevent children from epidemic disease.
Green spaces definitely bring a lot of health benefits to people. Especially in China, I have observed that there are more people exercising and hanging out with friends in the neighborhood with more greenery than in the neighborhood that has little greenery. The green space really does have a “magical” effect that brings people more closely and more friendly, it also makes people want to go outside to have fun instead of staying at home all day. However, in the reading it says that more greenery (trees) that cover the area can reduce crime and make people feel safe, I am not comprehending this theory and I feel the contrast way. For example, the forest in our campus (the area beside the Totem Park residence) always makes me and my friends afraid to walk by in the evening.
One question on the required reading. When I read the reading, I found that some of the pathways that link green space to health are thought of as benefits in former required readings, while some benefits are considered as pathways in other readings. It puzzled me a lot at that time. Is there an appropriate way to distinguish them precisely?