The effect of urban nature exposure on mental health—a case study of Guangzhou

Abstract

Abstract There is considerable evidence concerning the salutary effects of nature on mental health in developed countries. However, these benefits are less examined and recognized in Chinese cities where 11%–15% of the population are facing increasing mental health issues. To provide more comprehensive evidence concerning nature’s benefits on multiple components of mental health in Chinese cities, we address two poorly resolved questions: i) does exposure to urban park and blue space have equivalent associations with multiple components of mental health? ii) do these associations vary across gender and socioeconomic groups? We conducted two waves of cross-sectional surveys in Guangzhou and investigated 1,274 respondents’ (933 from online survey and 341 from face-to-face survey) depression risk and four aspects of subjective well-being (SWB) including life satisfaction, worthwhileness, happy yesterday, and anxious yesterday. The results suggest that both park and blue space exposure mitigate depression risk and negative affect well-being, however their associations vary with evaluative, eudemonic, and positive affect well-being. Achieving SWB across all its components needs access to both park and blue space. One-hectare increase in accessible water is associated with an improvement up to 0.45% anxious yesterday scores indicating blue space a potential public health resource. We observed a clear gender- and socioeconomic differences: nearby nature has stronger protective effects for female, lower educated and low-to-median income population groups than their counterpart. Although the heterogeneities need to be confirmed in other urban settings, our findings suggest that effective actions need to consider gender- and socioeconomic differences to target potential beneficiaries and maximize the returns of investments and policy interventions.