Health Reports
A Canadian peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research
May 2021
Ethnocultural and socioeconomic disparities in exposure to residential greenness within urban Canada
by Lauren Pinault, Tanya Christidis, Toyib Olaniyan and Dan L. Crouse
Living in a home surrounded by trees, gardens and natural vegetation (i.e., greenspace, or greenness) may confer numerous health benefits. Notably, studies in Canada, the United States and Europe have found inverse associations between residential greenness and all-cause or non-accidental, respiratory and cardiovascular mortality, after adjusting for socioeconomic and demographic confounders. Associations with mortality are stronger among certain groups: in Canada, among women and people with higher income and education, and, in England, among the lowest income group. In addition to mortality outcomes, a Dutch study found that better self-assessed general health was associated with exposure to greenness within both 1 km and 3 km of a person’s home, and a Toronto study found better perceived health was associated with higher street tree density.
Gentrification, Urban Interventions and Equity (GENUINE): A map-based gentrification tool for Canadian metropolitan areas
by Caislin L. Firth, Benoit Thierry, Daniel Fuller, Meghan Winters, and Yan Kestens
Urban renewal provides huge potential for improving population health in cities, but it may also carry unintended consequences for health equity. Health inequities may be reinforced by a lack of investment in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and also by unexpected gentrification processes. Gentrification is an area-level process in which formerly declining, under-resourced neighbourhoods experience reinvestment and in-migration of increasingly affluent new residents. There may be a multitude of consequences when the physical, social and economic environments of neighbourhoods are transformed by the gentrification process. In Canada, both the causes and consequences of gentrification have been explored in studies that shed light on who benefits from and who is harmed by such neighbourhood changes. Within Canadian cities, gentrification may be signalled by specific built-environment changes, such as greater access to rapid transit systems and green space, which have been associated with gentrifying areas. The social fabric of neighbourhoods is impacted by gentrification through declining social mix, ethnicity diversity and immigrant concentration, as well as by increasing housing evictions. However, increased collective efficacy might also be a result. Policy makers, city planners, and researchers require consistent, reliable data and tools for documenting gentrification to inform the design of healthy cities.
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