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curbsideSofa t1_j3ojoc3 wrote

Reply to comment by GlenJman in Green space and greater tree coverage shown to reduce heart attacks and heart disease among those living in houses by unswsydney

Hey neat you spent 5 seconds thinking of a possible omitted variable (income) that could be correlated to both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and neighborhood.

But before saying that a published study could just be picking up on this omitted variable correlation, perhaps you could open the paper and see if income controls were included in the specification:

"Confounders were selected to address issues of selection into neighborhoods containing more green space that are also known correlates of CVD, including sea, age, annual household income..."

Your criticism is not valid. Please engage with the content before sharing reasons it could be wrong, because in this case those reasons have explicitly already been accounted for.

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GlenJman t1_j3oll2z wrote

Counterintuitive results for apartment dwellers

Interestingly, for those living in apartments, green space wasn’t associated with better cardiovascular health outcomes. Again, the study authors say there may be a few possible reasons, but more research in this area is needed.

“One reason is that apartments are normally quite dense and may be even crowded. So you can imagine that if you plant the same number of trees in a low density area and then a high density area, the ratio of trees to people changes,” Prof. Feng said.

“Also, even if there is some green space within or around your apartment block, it’s often not an area you can or would want to visit, or permit children to play in. It’s there to tick a box but offers few qualities to attract people to spend time there."

Oops. I interacted with the article and it said what I said. Green areas with trees helped heart health only for people who owned houses and have free time to walk around. If you're low income and don't have free time to walk in the park, green spaces do nothing.

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curbsideSofa t1_j3onfya wrote

The title conditioned on "for those living in houses"

You said the result could be correlation of green space, income, and CVD.

I pointed out that income was a control, so your criticism was not valid.

You now move the goal posts and engage with the part of the study about apartment dwellers.

Allow me to try one last time: for those living in houses, nearby green space that includes trees reduces risk of death from CVD, after controlling for income.

Keep doing mental gymnastics, but your initial criticism was not valid.

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