Surroundings
Pollution | Green space | Safety | Outlets
About 3 mins
Why neighbourhoods and surroundings matter for health
Our surroundings play a key role in shaping our health. The neighbourhood we live in has a direct impact on our health – for example, air pollution can increase the risk of asthma and lung cancer.
Our surroundings can also shape our health indirectly. For example, having access to green space can enable healthy activities like outdoor exercise. The level of crime where we live can affect how safe we feel and our mental health. Outlets like fast food or betting shops can also influence our habits, with a knock-on effect to our physical or mental health.
How do air and noise pollution affect health?
Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental risks to public health in the UK, with long-term exposure causing an estimated 28,000 to 36,000 deaths each year.
Air pollution’s biggest impact is on respiratory health, increasing the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, severe allergic reactions, bronchiolitis and lung cancer. It can also increase the risk of depression, anxiety and psychosis through its effect on inflammation in the body.
The risk from air pollutants is so high, in part, because they can affect many organs. Pollution affects people in all stages of their development. It can cause low birth weight and affect lung development in children, and is linked to cardiovascular and respiratory conditions in adults, and accelerated decline in lung function as well as dementia in older people.
Noise pollution is a rapidly growing problem, particularly in cities. It can lead to hearing loss, sleep disturbance and negative effects on the cardiovascular and metabolic systems. Noise pollution can also cause cognitive impairment in children.
What are the benefits of green spaces for health?
Green spaces matter for both our physical and mental health. When we have access to green space, we have the opportunity to exercise more, and can enjoy the benefits of improved mental health and wellbeing by connecting with nature.
Additionally, green spaces reduce air and noise pollution, and reduce the ‘heat island effect’ (the higher temperatures of built-up areas compared with their rural surroundings) in urban places. Green spaces are also places where communities can get together, reducing loneliness and increasing the sense of neighbourhood belonging, with further benefits for our physical and mental health. People living in areas with better access to green space tend to have higher life expectancy.
Although areas with more green space are more likely to be affluent, the evidence suggests that green space contributes to better health, even if we take income into account. But we don’t all have the same opportunities to access a local green space, and the quality of green space varies. This matters, as the quality of green space is associated with how often people use it. If we do have access to some green space but it is in poor condition or doesn’t feel safe to visit, we are less likely to use it and as a result will get fewer benefits from it.
What are the health impacts of crime and feeling unsafe?
How safe we feel in our surroundings can affect health both directly and indirectly. Being a victim of crime can have serious direct effects on our physical and mental health, while fear of crime can affect health in more indirect ways, for example by leading us to exercise or socialise less frequently.
How do local outlets like fast food, tobacco, alcohol and betting shops influence our health?
Neighbourhood outlets are important for health, as the shops and food outlets around us can influence the food we eat and the activities we do every day.
The location, number and type of neighbourhood outlets can affect our behaviour, and in turn our health, by exposing us to potentially unhealthy products:
- There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that greater exposure to fast food outlets is associated with higher levels of obesity.
- Greater availability of tobacconists can promote smoking among young people.
- The availability of betting shops in an area can promote problem gambling.
- The same applies for alcohol outlets, where greater availability is linked to a higher level of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms, such as violent crime and hospital admissions.
Health tends to be worse where these outlets are more densely clustered – often, but not always, in deprived areas.
