Frequent visits to green spaces in cities such as parks and community gardens – rather than the amount or views of them from home – may be linked to lower use of certain prescription meds, suggests research conducted in Finland.

The observed connections between such visits and lower use of drugs for depression, anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and asthma were not dependent on people’s educational and income level.

Exposure to natural environments is thought to be good for health, but until now, the evidence has been inconsistent, wrote 10 researchers from the department of health security at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare n Kuopio. They published their findings in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine under the title “Cross-sectional associations of different types of nature exposure with psychotropic, antihypertensive and asthma medication.”

The team wanted to find out if the amount of residential green and blue space, frequency of green-space visits and views of green and blue spaces from home might be associated separately with the use of certain prescription drugs.Green […]