I was just browsing through bbc news and came across an article that relates to Dr. Sidelinger's talk on how urban planning and green spaces affect health.
This first article talks about a study done by a couple of scottish scientists on how greener neighborhoods relate to reducing the "health gap" between rich and poor. They studied the relation between the death of 36600 people between 2001 and 2005 and how "green" their local neighborhoods were. I don't believe all of the evidence but its interesting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7714950.stm
The next one done by researchers at Colombia University is an older one discussing the links between green neighborhoods and a reduction in asthma. They even go so far as to say that "asthma rates among children aged four and five fell by 25% for every extra 343 trees per square kilometre." It also discusses some of the stuff we learned about during the asthma clinical correlate about how exposure to more microbes as a child reduces the risk of asthma. They, however, link greener neighborhoods with playing outside more often. This therefore leads to more exposure to microbes thus lowers asthma risk. I'd like to see some more convincing evidence, but its a start.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7374078.stm
-Daniel
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