Research Of Small Public Urban Green Space In High-density City For Public Health

In recent decades,a lot of research has confirmed the health-promotion effects of natural environment from multiple dimensions,and tried to explain this phenomenon from different perspectives such as innate preference and acquired learning.Thus,facing the emerging and complicate problems of public health,"nature-based public health intervention" has become a possibility.However,under the irreversible trend of urbanization,this innovative strategy faces rigid constraint from the constant density of urban population and gray land.In this case,in order to promote the efficiency of application,the focus of "nature and health" is necessary to shift from basic research of "whether nature influences health" to applied research of "how nature influences health".Under this research background,based on analysis of miniaturization trend of public urban green space in high-density city and review of previous studies on "nature and health",taking "how nature influences health" as the breakthrough point,this dissertation carried out a systematic research ranging from qualitative analysis of pathways,quantitative research of the key segment of "use of nature" in the pathways based on small public urban green space(SPUGS)to the regulation methods of moderators betwen nature and health.1.Qualitative analysis of pathways indicated current construction of the linear pathways from nature environment to health-related effect to health outcomes could only be established under certain conditions such as in the laboratory,which was not enough to support the application for public health.The main reason is lack of research on moderators,which can influence the above mentioned linear pathways.To this end,based on mechanism of ecosystem service and mediator-moderator model in statistics,this dissertation tried to construct a conceptual model which consists of 7 parts for identifying the pathways to health from nature in real-world.In this conceptual model,the mediation process from nature ecosystem,ecosystem function,ecosystem services to health-wellbeing can be influenced by moderators in three different locations related to the use of nature.Based on social ecological model in behavioral science,these moderators can be further divided into demand factors and supply factors.This model could provide theoretical reference for research in the future which have goodecological validity,and could provide theoretical basis for empirical study on moderators in this dissertation.2.Quantitative research of SPUGS in dense areas of Chengdu indicated that:1)SPUGS and comprehensive park play different roles in dense city.Compared to the latter,the former is easier to use by people in daily life because of its advantage in the total number,distribution and accessibility.However,this does not mean that SPUGS can completely replace the comprehensive park.Priority use of SPUGS may be not because more preference for this type of public urban green space but because "compensation behavior" of contact with nature under the reality conditions.2)Use of SPUGS has certain health-promotion effect which indicated by valence.The use frequency of SPUGS could explain 1.61% of change in valence,use frequency every rise a gradient,valence of respondents increased 0.086 gradient.Although the health benefits of SPUGS are limited,they may have non-ignorable potential in public health improvement because of the large number of potential users of SPUGS.This result means that SPUGS is likely to be potential resources for promoting public health in dense city,and therefor research and practice of public urban green space oriented by health in the future should value this kind of green space.3)Even if SPUGS has inherent advantages in proximity,accessibility and so on,use of this kind of green space among different populations still shows evident social stratification.This phenomenon embodied as a significant difference in frequency of use among different age,education,income,and family structure of the population.Among them,middle-low income groups,middle-low education groups,aging group and group with children have a relatively higher frequency of use.This result means that small-scale urban green space is of great significance to improve economy,education and age-related health inequality in high-density city.Further analysis showed that,the main reason for the relatively higher frequency of these people is not the opportunities but the motivation.of use.4)The main motivations of use of SPUGS are relaxation and stress reduction,good weather enjoyment,social interaction,physical activity and so on.These motivations have a bigger difference in different age,gender or income groups.Further analysis showed that the difference in of motivation of use can be attributed to differentcharacteristics of socioeconomic status,lifestyle preferences,or personal reasons of different type of people,and this difference can to a great extent explain the differences in use frequency of SPUGS.5)The physical characteristics of SPUGS have obvious support or limitation on motivations.Specifically,more grass,more shrubs,topography and natural trails could provide opportunity for the motivation of relaxation and stress reduction,while special plants,play equipment,distributing space and view outside will hinder this motivation.In terms of socialising,paved trails,rest equipment,play equipment are important,while more shrubs and topography should be avoided.In addition,some physical characteristics cannot support a variety of motives,such as more shrubs will support relaxation and stress reduction but will hinder socialising.3.Exploration of regulation method of moderators showed that the combination of evidence-based design and affordances model can be used to deal with complicated relations between user demand and the supply of SPUGS,and can improve the effectiveness of this process.