Journal
HEALTH & PLACE
Volume 54, Issue -, Pages 110-117Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.09.002
Keywords
Depression; CES-D scores; Coastal blue space; Blue space visibility; Older adults; Viewshed analysis
Categories
Funding
- ESRI's Environment Research Programme - Environmental Protection Agency
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper tests whether higher exposure to coastal blue space is associated with lower risk of depression using data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), a nationally representative longitudinal study of people aged fifty and over in Ireland. We contribute to the literature on blue space and health by (i) using scores from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) to measure depression outcomes (ii) using new measures of coastal blue space visibility (iii) studying the association in an older population (iv) using data from Ireland. Our results indicate that exposure to coastal blue space is associated with beneficial mental health outcomes: TILDA respondents with the highest share of sea view visibility have lower depression (CES-D) scores, while distance from coastline is not statistically significant when views and proximity are both included in the model. This finding supports the idea that the primary channel through which coastal blue space operates to reduce depression scores is visual rather than related to physical proximity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available