Greenspace has been shown to be positively associated with mental wellbeing, but studies from the global South have been scarce. We advance the understanding of the relationship between greenspace and depressive symptoms by using multiple clearly defined metrics describing neighborhood greenness and urban parks in an understudied region with rapid urban growth. We linked individual-level health survey data for urban residents in Mexico (n = 17,258 respondents in 84 cities) with measures of greenspace such as satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), percent green area, urban parks characteristics, and kernel-density-derived continuous greenspace indicator. We estimated the odds ratios of experiencing depressive symptoms associated with greenspace at residential neighborhoods adjusted for individual and area-level characteristics. Among the various measures of greenspace investigated, the amount of greenness measured by neighborhood NDVI was associated with smaller odds of depressive symptoms. An increase by one standard deviation in the median of annual maximum NDVI at neighborhood level is associated with 8.7 % (Odds Ratio [OR] = 0.913, 95 % CI 0.853–0.977) lower odds of experiencing depressive symptoms, adjusted for individual and area-level characteristics. We find some evidence that, when neighborhood-level greenness is accounted for, the broader availability of greenspace outside of the neighborhood may be associated with smaller odds of depressive symptoms. We found no statistically significant associations for the measures describing % greenspace in a neighborhood and urban parks, and the results were not sensitive to seasonal changes in greenness. Neighborhood-level particulate matter (PM2.5) may lessen the benefits of greenspace for depressive symptoms. Higher neighborhood-level greenness as measured by NDVI is associated with smaller odds of depressive symptoms in Mexico's cities, whereas many other metrics are not. The influence of the choice of greenspace metrics on the subsequent associations highlights the importance of clear operational definitions of greenspace and the need to consider multiple complementary greenspace metrics in greenspace-health research.

中文翻译：

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使用不同绿地指标研究墨西哥城市绿地与抑郁症状之间的关联

绿地已被证明与心理健康呈正相关，但来自南方国家的研究却很少。我们通过使用多个明确定义的指标来描述城市快速发展的未被充分研究的地区的社区绿化和城市公园，从而增进对绿地与抑郁症状之间关系的理解。我们将墨西哥城市居民的个人健康调查数据（n = 84 个城市的 17,258 名受访者）与绿地衡量指标联系起来，例如卫星得出的归一化植被指数 (NDVI)、绿地面积百分比、城市公园特征和核心绿地指标。密度导出的连续绿地指标。我们估计了在住宅区经历与绿地相关的抑郁症状的比值比，并根据个人和地区特征进行了调整。在调查的各种绿地测量中，通过邻域 NDVI 测量的绿化量与抑郁症状的较小几率相关。根据个人和地区进行调整后，社区一级年度最大 NDVI 中位数增加 1 个标准差，出现抑郁症状的几率降低 8.7%（优势比 [OR] = 0.913，95% CI 0.853–0.977）。水平特征。我们发现一些证据表明，当考虑到社区层面的绿化程度时，社区之外更广泛的绿色空间可能与抑郁症状的发生几率较小有关。我们发现描述社区和城市公园绿地百分比的指标没有统计上显着的关联，并且结果对绿地的季节性变化不敏感。社区颗粒物 (PM2.5) 可能会减少绿地对抑郁症状的益处。根据 NDVI 衡量，社区绿化程度越高，墨西哥城市出现抑郁症状的几率就越小，而许多其他指标则不然。绿地指标的选择对后续关联的影响凸显了绿地明确的操作定义的重要性以及在绿地健康研究中考虑多种互补绿地指标的必要性。