Residential Green and Mortality in Switzerland

Background/Aim: Residential green, i.e. greenspaces or greenness, may improve health and decrease mortality by promoting physical activity and enabling stress recovery. We investigated the association between residential green and specific causes of death. Methods: We used Cox proportional hazard models to study the association for all natural cause, all respiratory, all cardiovascular disease (CVD), ischemic heart disease, stroke and blood-pressure related mortality in the adult population of Switzerland using the Swiss National Cohort. Satellite-based normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI: greenness) and spatially resolved land use data (SwissTLM: greenspace) were used to model address-level exposure in the immediate surrounding and local neighbourhood. Hazard ratios (HR) were adjusted for sex, civil status, region, urbanity, job position, education, neighbourhood socio-economic position (SEP), and incrementally for NO2, total transportation noise and altitude. Results: With 4.2 million adults an...