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This article is under construction. It is for the purpose of a course, so please do not edit it until April 21st.

Health Benefit of Green Space Despite improvements in medical technology that allow humans to heal from numerous diseases and medical conditions, research shows that contact with the green environment still offers great benefits to mental health and psychological well-being. Within a population, whether it is in the scale of a town or a state, researchers are continuing to find evidence of increased health benefits from a green environment that provides abundant vegetation. When physical activity of an individual is coupled with green environments, the health benefits are observed to be amplified.

Individual Scale
psychological benefits gained by visitors to urban green spaces increased with their biodiversity, indicating that 'green' alone is not sufficient; the quality of that green is important in delivering the health benefits.

Improve Focus
Interacting with nature can have a restorative effect on attention/focus levels, through providing the brain a break from overstimulation.

Strengthen Immunity
A research study showed that women who spent six hours in the woods for two days showed a increse in white blood cells. This incresed was also recorded to have stayed for seven days afterwards.

Faking It
There are benefits from nature that can be manipulated as well. People who were shown pictures of scenic, natural environments had increased brain activity in the region associated with recalling happy memories, compared to people that were shown pictures of urban landscapes.

Physical Activity
Studies done on physically active adults middle aged and older show there are amplified benefits when the physical activities are coupled with green space environments. Such coupling leads to decreased levels of stress, lowers the risk for depression as well as increase the frequency of participation in excercise. Degree of intensity of exercises don't impact degree of benefit from green space. Casual group walks in a green environment (nature walks) increase one's positive attitude and lower stress levels as well as risk of depression. Research shows that when open spaces are attractive and accessible, people are more likely to engage in physical activity, which has obvious inherent health benefits. Accessibility has been shown to increase open space use, which drops dramatically for distances longer than a five-minute walk (about 400 m). Neighbourhood layouts such as the Oglethorpe Plan for Savannah, GA or the contemporary Fused Grid achieve high degree of accessibility. It is important to note that according to a different study, physical exercise in natural environments do not necessarily elevate one's health state such as treating depression, but rather benefit in the forms of preventing the decrease of one's mental well-being such as risk of depression or distress. Also, regular use of non-natural, in particular sporting environments, was positively and significantly associated with greater well-being in terms of physical health, but no such correlation was found with regular use of any of the natural environments from the study. This suggests that greener environments and their positive benefits on human health is limited to mental health and well-being.

Communal Scale
A large epidemiological study concluded that wealthier individuals were generally healthier than individuals with a lower income, explained by the pattern that wealthier individuals reside in areas more concentrated with green space. There was a positive correlation with increased green space and improvment in health. Also, from equal exposure to green space, everyone benefited but the lowest income group benefited the most. (see chart). These striking results based on an exceptionally large sample confirm unambiguously the health-related effects of green space and suggest its importance as an element in neighbourhood layouts. Not only would it reduce health disparities between incomes but it would also promote general health and well-being.