Assessing the Impact of School-Based Greenness on Mental Health Among Adolescent Students in Ontario, Canada
by
Sebastian A. Srugo 1
, Margaret de Groh 1, Ying Jiang 1, Howard I. Morrison 1, Hayley A. Hamilton 2,3 and Paul J. Villeneuve 4,*
Sebastian A. Srugo 1, Margaret de Groh 1, Ying Jiang 1, Howard I. Morrison 1, Hayley A. Hamilton 2,3 and Paul J. Villeneuve 4,*
1
Centre for Surveillance and Applied Research, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada
2
Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M5S 2S1, Canada
3
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada
4
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(22), 4364; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224364
Received: 9 October 2019 / Revised: 1 November 2019 / Accepted: 6 November 2019 / Published: 8 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mental Health and Well-Being in Adolescence: Environment and Behavior)
Neighbourhood greenness has been frequently associated with improved mental health in adulthood, yet its impact among youth is less clear. Additionally, though youth spend large portions of time at school, no study has investigated associations between school-based measures of greenness and students’ mental health in Canada. We addressed this gap by linking participant responses from the 2016–2017 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey to school-based features of the built environment. Our analyses included 6313 students, ages 11–20. Measures of greenness were the mean and max of the annual mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index within 500 m and 1000 m from the centroid of the school postal code. Measures of mental health included: serious psychological distress (Kessler 6-item Psychological Distress Scale), self-rated mental health (using a five-point Likert scale), suicide ideation, and suicide attempt. In our study population, the prevalence of serious psychological distress and low self-rated mental health was 16.7% and 20.3%, respectively. Suicide ideation was reported by 13.5% of participants, while 3.7% reported a suicide attempt. Quantity of greenness was similar between schools in the lower and upper quartiles. In logistic regressions, we found no association between objective school-based greenness and mental health, as assessed by multiple measures, both before and after adjustment. Null findings held true after stratification by season, as well. Whether other characteristics of school greenness (such as type, quality, or access and use) are more impactful to students’ mental health should be a focus of future analyses.
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Keywords:
built environment; schools; mental health; adolescent; survey
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MDPI and ACS Style
Srugo, S.A.; de Groh, M.; Jiang, Y.; Morrison, H.I.; Hamilton, H.A.; Villeneuve, P.J. Assessing the Impact of School-Based Greenness on Mental Health Among Adolescent Students in Ontario, Canada. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 4364.
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