Lower regional urbanicity and socioeconomic status attenuate associations of green spaces with hypertension and diabetes mellitus: a national representative cross-sectional study in China

Abstract

Background: High blood pressure (HBP) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are two of the most prevalent cardiometabolic disorders globally, especially among individuals with lower socio-economic status (SES). Studies have linked residential greenness to decreased risks of HBP and DM. However, there has been limited evidence on whether SES may modify the associations of residential greenness with HBP and DM.

Methods: Based on a national representative cross-sectional study among 44,876 adults, we generated the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) at 1 km spatial resolution to characterize individuals’ residential greenness level. Administrative classification (urban/rural), nighttime light index (NLI), individual income, and educational levels were used to characterize regional urbanicity and individual SES levels.

Results: We observed weaker inverse associations of NDVI with HBP and DM in rural regions compared to urban regions. For instance, along with per interquartile range (IQR, 0.26) increment in residential NDVI at 0∼5 year moving averages, the ORs of HBP were 1.04 (95%CI: 0.94, 1.15) in rural regions and 0.85 (95%CI: 0.79, 0.93) in urban regions (P = 0.003). Along with the decrease in NLI levels, there were continuously decreasing inverse associations of NDVI with DM prevalence (P for interaction <0.001). In addition, weaker inverse associations of residential NDVI with HBP and DM prevalence were found among individuals with lower income and lower education levels compared to their counterparts.

Conclusions: Lower regional urbanicity and individual SES could attenuate the associations of residential greenness with odds of HBP and DM prevalence.