Urban Trees Advocate for Human and Urban Health and Vice Versa

Summary: Urban trees affirm active human, non-polluted urban health, according to a TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension webinar Nov. 19, 2019.

U.S. Forest Service and University of Washington research scientist Kathleen Wolf credits her sabbatical at Japan's Awaji Landscape Planning and Horticulture Academy (ALPHA) with inspiring the establishment of Green Cities: Good Health website, a collaborative project of the U.S. Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) Program and the University of Washington; view of ALPA campus, Hyogo Prefectural University, Kobe City, southern Honshu, Japan: 淡路景観園芸学校／兵庫県立大学大学院 緑環境景観マネジメント研究科, via Facebook Oct. 15, 2014

Urban trees advance urban health in arboricultural, epidemiological associations articulable in economic values and research evidence, according to a co-sponsored TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension webinar Nov. 19, 2019.

Dr. Kathleen Wolf of the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest Research Station began her formal educational presentation with a World Health Organization (WHO) definition. Her webinar, Health Benefits of City Trees: Research Evidence and Economic Values, concurs with WHO's correlating health with disease and infirmity-free mental, physical and social well-being. Her Lunch and Learn webinar deferred to the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service portal for Green Cities: Good Health reviews and summaries.

The hour-long presentation, until 1 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, equated air quality, physical activity, social contacts and stress reduction in natural environments with health and well-being.

A database of 4,500-plus peer-reviewed publications from the 1970s through 2015 furnished research findings focused upon health-friendly, tree-friendly economic and urban forest planning and planting implications.

Active, healing, mentally and physically healthy, risk-reducing, therapeutic lifestyles versus community and social ties, place attachment and meaning and safe streets gauge human versus urban health. Urban trees help human and urban health by harvesting air pollutants, excess heat and ultraviolet radiation but hurt human health for those who have pollen allergies. Economic models and medical research respectively inform arborists and urban foresters about market-determined health and tree costs, not non-marked-valued tree benefits, and about pollen-impacted health.

The second half-hour on diseases and disorders that jeopardize human and urban health joined the first on healthy inputs from nature generally and urban trees specifically.

The Wolf slides keep track of health care spending for 2016, at $10,348 per person and at $3.5 trillion overall, and of mortality causes for 2017.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed the 15 leading causes for a total of 2,813,503 resident deaths in the United States in 2017. They mention, first through ninth, heart diseases; cancer; accidents; Alzheimer's, cerebrovascular and chronic lower respiratory diseases; diabetes mellitus; influenza, pneumonia; and kidney disease, disorder and inflammation. They next note septicemia (from Latin sēpticus, "putrefying" and -emia, "blood"); essential and renal hypertension; Parkinson's disease; and pneumonitis (from Greek πνεύμων, "lung" and -ίτης, "inflammation").

Urban trees for human and urban health optimally operate against costly, health-compromising behavioral and mental disorders; cardiovascular and circulatory diseases; neoplasms; and musculoskeletal disorders.

Urban trees for human and urban health optimally palliate costly, health-compromising, mobility-restricting diabetes, blood, endocrine and urogenital disorders; chronic respiratory diseases; non-communicable diseases; and neurological disorders.

Greening urban spaces by 35 to 40 percent perhaps quantifies as health care spending reduced from 2017's $327 billion on diabetes and $1.1 trillion on hospitalizations. It recommends bringing nature close; creating refuges and 20 to 50-minute walking loops; generating diverse, mature-specimen greening blocks; and planting for tree-filled entrance and window views. It suggests the forest immersion therapy that survives from older Chinese practices into more recent Japanese cultural appropriations as sim-lim (森林, "forest-bathe") and shinrin-yoku (森林浴, "forest-bathing").

The Wolf webinar tells arborists and urban foresters what diseases, disorders and stresses trouble human and urban health and to transplant the most tolerant urban trees.

The U.S. Forest Service's (USFS) Pacific Northwest Research Station website describes Green Cities: Good Health website as a database of "summaries on the benefits of urban trees and green spaces," based on more than 1,700 scientific articles, with key findings revealing the benefits of proximity to nature for city-living humans: Blue Urban @GreenBlueUrban, via Facebook Sep. 20, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

U.S. Forest Service and University of Washington research scientist Kathleen Wolf credits her sabbatical at Japan's Awaji Landscape Planning and Horticulture Academy (ALPHA) with inspiring the establishment of Green Cities: Good Health website, a collaborative project of the U.S. Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) Program and the University of Washington; view of ALPHA campus, Hyogo Prefectural University, Kobe City, southern Honshu, Japan: 淡路景観園芸学校／兵庫県立大学大学院 緑環境景観マネジメント研究科, via Facebook Oct. 15, 2014, @ https://www.facebook.com/596607490451035/photos/a.596610457117405/596610350450749/

The U.S. Forest Service's (USFS) Pacific Northwest Research Station website describes Green Cities: Good Health website as a database of "summaries on the benefits of urban trees and green spaces," based on more than 1,700 scientific articles, with key findings revealing the benefits of proximity to nature for city-living humans: Blue Urban @GreenBlueUrban, via Facebook Sep. 20, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/GreenBlueUrban/status/778239761446232065

For further information:

Barron, S.; S. Nitoslawski; K. L. Wolf; A. Wood; E. Desautels; S. R. J. Sheppard. 2019. "Greening Blocks: A Conceptual Typology of Practical Design Interventions to Integrate Health and Climate Resilience Co-Benefits." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16: 4241.

GreenBlue Urban ‏@GreenBlueUrban. 20 September 2016. "Brilliant new project launched Green Cities Good Health @TreesforCities @GIPartnership @The_RHS." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/GreenBlueUrban/status/778239761446232065

Marriner, Derdriu. 2018. "Shinrin-Yoku: Forest Bathing Year-Round, Indoors and Outdoors, for All." Wizzley.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/shinrin-yoku-forest-bathing-year-round-indoors-and-outdoors-for-all/

Wolf, Kathleen. 19 November 2019. "Health Benefits of City Trees: Research Evidence and Economic Values." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ http://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Wolf, Kathleen L.; Marcus K. Measells; Stephen C. Grado; and Alicia S.T. Robbins. 2015. "Economic Values of Metro Nature Health Benefits: A Life Course Approach." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 14(2015): 694-701. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2015.06.009.
Available @ https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2015_wolf002.pdf