TY - JOUR
T1 - The roles of residential greenness in the association between air pollution and health
T2 - a systematic review
AU - Son, Ji Young
AU - Choi, Hayon Michelle
AU - Fong, Kelvin C.
AU - Heo, Seulkee
AU - Lim, Chris C.
AU - Bell, Michelle L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was developed under Assistance Agreement No. RD835871 awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to Yale University. It has not been formally reviewed by EPA. The views expressed in this document are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Agency. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award No. R01MD012769. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - While a growing body of literature suggests beneficial impacts of greenness on several health outcomes, relatively few studies have examined greenness as an effect modifier to impacts of air pollution on health outcomes, and results from the existing studies are inconclusive. We performed a comprehensive, systematic review of previous literature on greenness as a potential effect modifier for associations between particulate matter air pollution and health. After initial screening of 7814 studies, we identified 20 eligible studies. We summarized findings on study characteristics based on several criteria: health outcome, air pollution exposure, source of air pollution data, study location, study period, and median year of the study period. We evaluated characteristics of effect modification by greenness on air pollution and health associations based on the number of greenness metrics applied, type of greenness metric (e.g. normalized difference vegetation index, land use), data source for greenness, and spatial resolution and buffer size. We also summarized evidence for effect modification by greenness based on strength and direction of evidence for each study and overall evidence of effect modification by greenness by several study characteristics. Our systematic review showed that only a limited number of studies have been conducted on greenness as an effect modifier for air pollution-health associations. We found differences in several study characteristics such as greenness assessment (e.g. greenness metrics applied, spatial resolution, and data sources) across studies. Collectively, the studies provide suggestive evidence for the hypothesis that areas with high greenness have lower impacts of air pollution on health, although some studies reported inconsistent findings. The findings from our review provide valuable knowledge on how greenness affects associations between air pollution and health and could help identify critical areas for future study.
AB - While a growing body of literature suggests beneficial impacts of greenness on several health outcomes, relatively few studies have examined greenness as an effect modifier to impacts of air pollution on health outcomes, and results from the existing studies are inconclusive. We performed a comprehensive, systematic review of previous literature on greenness as a potential effect modifier for associations between particulate matter air pollution and health. After initial screening of 7814 studies, we identified 20 eligible studies. We summarized findings on study characteristics based on several criteria: health outcome, air pollution exposure, source of air pollution data, study location, study period, and median year of the study period. We evaluated characteristics of effect modification by greenness on air pollution and health associations based on the number of greenness metrics applied, type of greenness metric (e.g. normalized difference vegetation index, land use), data source for greenness, and spatial resolution and buffer size. We also summarized evidence for effect modification by greenness based on strength and direction of evidence for each study and overall evidence of effect modification by greenness by several study characteristics. Our systematic review showed that only a limited number of studies have been conducted on greenness as an effect modifier for air pollution-health associations. We found differences in several study characteristics such as greenness assessment (e.g. greenness metrics applied, spatial resolution, and data sources) across studies. Collectively, the studies provide suggestive evidence for the hypothesis that areas with high greenness have lower impacts of air pollution on health, although some studies reported inconsistent findings. The findings from our review provide valuable knowledge on how greenness affects associations between air pollution and health and could help identify critical areas for future study.
KW - Air pollution
KW - Effect modifier
KW - Health
KW - Residential greenness
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U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e61
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e61
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85116062837
VL - 16
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
SN - 1748-9326
IS - 9
M1 - 093001
ER -