Philadelphia, PA, March 12, 2024

A recent SALURBAL study published in Applied Geography sheds light on the relationship between neighborhood greenness and mental health and depression in cities across Mexico. The study, “Associations between urban greenspace and depressive symptoms in Mexico's cities using different greenspace metrics,” was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Urban Health in Latin America (SALURBAL) Project led by Maryia Bakhtsiyarava, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar from the University of California, Berkeley.

The research contributes much-needed evidence of the importance of urban greening and greenspace on health in rapidly urbanizing regions across the global south.

The authors examined connections between neighborhood greenspace and depressive symptoms among more than 17,000 urban residents in 84 large cities across Mexico. Key findings indicate that higher levels of neighborhood “greenness” (measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index or NDVI) were associated with almost 10% lower odds of experiencing depressive symptoms.

Read the full news story on the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative's website:

Neighborhood Greenness Associated With Decreased Depressive Symptoms in Mexican Cities