Primary Submission Category: Place/Communities
Associations between Mobility-Based Green Space Exposure and Emotional Experiences Differ by Gender
Authors: Samantha Gailey Huyen Le Yingling Fan
Presenting Author: Samantha Gailey*
Background: Population research on the health and emotional benefits of green space largely delimits exposure to the residential environment. This approach does not account for additional (i.e., “mobility-based”) settings in which people experience and benefit from green space. Emotional responses to mobility-based green space exposure, moreover, may differ by gender. Women typically report lower levels of happiness in public spaces but greater belonginess in natural spaces than men. As such, greater exposure to green space in mobility-based settings may reduce the gender gap in happiness.
Methods: We used a GPS-enabled smartphone application (Daynamica) to collect data on participants’ locations, travel episodes, and activities for 1 week in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, 2016-2017. Participants (n=362) completed real-time mobile surveys (ecological momentary assessments; EMA) about emotions during each activity/travel episode (n=10,421). We linked environmental data from Open Street Map on green space within a 50-meter buffer along daily routes to operationalize a mobility-based measure of green space exposure. Longitudinal fixed-effects models estimated within-person associations between mobility-based green space exposure and self-reported happiness, controlling for time-varying individual, trip, and area-level characteristics. We further stratified models by gender to explore differences in emotional responses to mobility-based green space exposure among self-identified men and women.
Results: Mobility-based green space exposure varied positively with self-reported happiness among women but not men.
Conclusions: Findings support our hypothesis that exposure to green space in mobility-based settings conferred emotional benefits to women. Methodologically, results suggest that smartphone-based GPS tracking paired with EMA can capture more granular spatial and emotional experiences that may hold relevance for population health and gender equity.