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Associations of Street-View Greenspace with Incident Cardiovascular Disease in the US-based Nationwide Nurses’ Health Study from 2000 to 2016

Year: 2023
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: BACKGROUND AND AIM: Epidemiologic studies have used satellite-derived measures of greenspace to show that greenspace is negatively associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence/mortality. However, satellite-derived measures do not capture ground-level visible exposures that reflect a participant’s lived experience. Google Street View (GSV) images offer the opportunity to measure greenspace from an on the ground perspective and to examine specific greenspace features that may be most relevant for health. We aimed to evaluate street-based greenspace-CVD, stroke, and myocardial infarction incidence associations in a nationwide cohort. METHOD: We followed 96,531 participants from the US-based Nurses’ Health Study from 2000 to 2016. Based on deep learning algorithms applied to 350 million GSV images, we linked GSV-based percentage of trees to participants’ biennially assessed residential addresses from 2004 to 2016 in a 100m buffer. We used time-varying Cox proportional hazards models to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). We specified a model adjusted for individual-level age, race, marital status, husband’s education, and neighborhood confounders (e.g. median household income). RESULTS: During follow-up, we observed 5,636 cases of CVD, 2,931 cases of stroke, and 2,705 cases of non-fatal myocardial infarction and fatal coronary heart disease (CHD). For CVD incidence, we observed a HR of 0.98 (CI 0.92, 1.05) per inter-quartile range (IQR) of percentage of trees. Results for total CHD and stroke were similar. CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary results suggest that percentage of trees was not associated with incidence of CVD, stroke, or CHD. Ongoing studies from our team are examining other specific features of greenspace (e.g., percentage of grass, shrubs, and total greenspace) in association with cardiovascular health.
DOI: 10.1289/isee.2023.vo-016
Authors: Marcia Pescador Jimenez, Pi I Debby Lin, Esra Suel, Jochem O Klompmaker, Wenwen Zhang, Perry Hystad, Steve Hankey, Eric B Rimm, Brent Coull, Jaime E Hart, Francine Laden, Peter James
Institutions: Boston University, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, University College London, Harvard University, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Oregon State University, Virginia Tech
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4390994137
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