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Health benefits of green spaces not confirmed

¹ School of Population and Health Sciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J Adams;
j.m.adams@ncl.ac.uk

Keywords: green spaces

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Takano and colleagues’ paper¹ on the association between proximity to "walkable green spaces" and longevity in senior citizens in Tokyo will be of interest to those involved in promoting health in its broadest sense. However, this study has a number of methodological limitations, the authors draw conclusions that are not supported by their results and the study does not merit the largely uncritical responses published elsewhere in the journal.^2–5

Only 3144 people of 7362 contacted (42.7%) agreed to take part in the survey. This response rate leads to the potential for substantial selection bias that is not discussed by the authors.

The questions used to determine proximity of participants to "walkable green spaces" are not explicitly described and their appropriateness cannot be determined. Asking if participants lived "near" to a place for taking a stroll will lead to highly subjective answers. In particular, those who do take strolls may be . . . [Full text of this article]

T Takano², K Nakamura², M Watanabe²

² Health Promotion/International Health, Division of Public Health, Graduate School of Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Yushima 1–5–45, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113–8519, Japan; takano.hlth@tmd.ac.jp

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