When healthy aging meets Vitamin G: Assessing the associations between green space and heart health in older adults using street view and electrocardiography

Abstract

Heart health is important for the quality of life, especially for older adults. Awareness is mounting that green space possibly matters for promoting heart health. While most studies mainly focused on the relationship between green space and cardiovascular diseases among older adults, scant attention has been paid to general heart heat measures through electrocardiography (ECG). This study aims to systematically assess the association between community green space exposure and heart health for Chinese older adults using street view and ECG. This observational, cross-sectional study was based on data from the 33 Chinese Community Health Study (33 CCHS). The heart health was measured by the presence of electrocardiographic abnormalities. We used street view data to calculate exposure to community street view green space (SVG) and further distinguished between street view trees (SVG-tree) and grass (SVG-grass). As a green space reference, we also incorporated the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The results showed that SVG-grass was negatively associated with older adults’ odds of reporting electrocardiographic abnormalities, but there is no evidence that SVG-tree or NDVI was related to that. Also, the stratified analyses indicated that the results vary across demographic and socioeconomic groups. Heart health for males and older adults with lower income or educational attainment were significantly associated with SVG exposure, while such findings were not found for their counterparts. Our findings suggest ECG and street view data are promising in understanding green space-heart health associations. Hence, it is essential to promote the provision and visibility of community green space especially for older adults in disadvantaged groups.