Impact of ecological park restoration on health in low income neighborhoods: A natural experiment

总结 生活在社会经济贫困的市中心的个人， 心血管疾病、癌症、2型糖尿病和肥胖症，这些疾病都有压力和身体 活动相关病因。以前对城市建成环境的研究表明， 可以减轻压力并增加身体活动。然而，因果健康关系一直是 由于依赖横截面设计，粗略的暴露评估， 有限的健康影响数据和对绿色空间的负面方面的忽视（例如，垃圾、噪音）。 这项研究将利用即将在五个低收入社区进行的自然实验 在底特律，密歇根州涉及到生态恢复未维护的公园草原草甸。 五个控制公园社区的人口和建成的特点相匹配。这 纵向研究将包括来自10个干预/对照组的参与者（n=590，在自然减员后） 公园社区与基线测量，然后每年测量三年后， 修复我们的研究将是第一个自然实验，以检查生态的影响， 利用视觉/听觉暴露的个体水平测量的恢复（例如，绿色植物， 鸟鸣）对绿色空间健康的影响。我们将超越通常的客观衡量的物理 活动（GPS/加速度计）在公园的研究，包括验证的压力生物标志物（唾液 皮质醇）和心脏代谢指标（BMI、血压、臀腰比、C反应 蛋白质和A1 C）。需要回答的问题是：废弃地的生态修复 公园变成草地和鸟类栖息地增加了附近居民的体力活动， 降低他们的压力，改善他们的心脏代谢健康？我们提出三个目标。目标1： 确定公园生态恢复对身体活动的影响，从基线到 3-年后修复，使用非随机设计。目标2：照亮减压 恢复公园的潜力目标3：评价生态修复对下游的影响 心脏代谢健康结果。了解生态修复对健康的作用 为城市的复制、可扩展性和可推广性提供了独特的机会 管理低收入社区的公园资源。我们的发现将对 制定减轻肥胖症普遍存在的社会经济差异所需的政策， 2糖尿病、癌症和心脏代谢健康。

Summary Individuals living in socioeconomically deprived inner cities have disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease, cancers, Type 2 diabetes and obesity, which have stress- and physical activity-related etiologies. Previous research on the urban built environment suggests that parks may reduce stress and increase physical activity. Yet, the causal health relationships have been difficult to establish due to reliance on cross-sectional designs, coarse exposure assessment, limited health effects data and neglect of negative aspects of green space (e.g., litter, noise). This study will capitalize on an upcoming natural experiment in five low-income neighborhoods in Detroit, MI involving the ecological restoration of unmaintained parks to grassland meadows. Five control park neighborhoods were matched on demographic and built characteristics. This longitudinal study will include participants (n=590 after attrition) from ten intervention/control park neighborhoods with baseline measurement then annual measurement for three years post- restoration. Our study will be the first natural experiment to examine the impact of ecological restoration with individual-level measurement of visual/auditory exposure (e.g., greenery, birdsong) to green space on health. We will go beyond the usual objective measure of physical activity (GPS/accelerometer) in park studies to include a validated stress biomarker (salivary cortisol) and cardio-metabolic indicators (BMI, blood pressure, hip-to-waist ratio, C-reactive protein and A1C). The question to be answered is: Does ecological restoration of abandoned parks into grassland meadows and bird habitats increase nearby resident’s physical activity, lower their stress, and improve their cardio-metabolic health? We propose three aims. Aim 1: Establish the effect of ecological restoration of parks on physical activity from baseline through 3-years post-restoration, using a non-randomized design. Aim 2: Illuminate the stress reduction potential of restored parks. Aim 3: Evaluate the effect of ecological restoration on downstream cardio-metabolic health outcomes. Understanding the role of ecological restoration on health will provide the unique opportunity to inform replication, scalability and generalizability for cities managing park resources in low-income neighborhoods. Our findings will be vital in the development of policies needed to mitigate pervasive socioeconomic disparities in obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cardio-metabolic health.