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Interesting.. it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees. So what are the other possible arrows of causation? Maybe healthy people choose to live near

Interesting.. it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees. So what are the other possible arrows of causation? Maybe healthy people choose to live near trees?

tunesmith 7y ago
Or something else causes both healthy people and living near trees.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  The obvious one being wealthy people -> wealthy community | | v v good health trees
  - arnonejoe 7y ago
    This is true. Leafy neighborhoods also tend to be wealthy enclaves.
  - dahfizz 7y ago
    It's usually much cheaper to live outside of a city than inside.
  - learc83 7y ago
    The article says they controlled for income.
    - jdietrich 7y ago
      That's not the same as controlling for socio-economic status. A millennial living in a city-center apartment and a boomer living in a paid-up house in the suburbs might have the same income, but they have very different life circumstances and experience very different levels of stress.
      - learc83 7y ago
        They also controlled for "age, sex, annual household income, economic status (eg, employed, retired, or unemployed), highest educational qualification, and couple status". Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. With a very large study size, and a huge result (30% difference) it's unlikely that it can be explained by socioeconomic status. The study discusses this by the way.
        jdietrich 7y ago
        >Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. Socio-economic status is notoriously difficult to control for. https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/81-82/1/21/282643 https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/81-82/1/21/282643
        learc83 7y ago
        If this were a small study or found a small result, then edge cases like lower income millennials with no degree who live in inherited houses in wealthy areas with trees might skew the results. If you disagree with the studies methodology fine, but I'm satisfied that authors have done their due diligence with respect to socio-economic status.
        6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
        The authors, at least in OP, use "associated with" language.
  - tomatotomato37 7y ago
    The problem with that is tree coverage drastically goes up again when you hit "broken washing machine on lawn" levels of poverty due to just the general amount of old growth in rural poor areas
Viliam1234 7y ago
> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees Why not? Maybe people who feel well are more likely to care about their environment, and e.g. organize protests when someone wants to remove trees from their neighborhood. Meanwhile, depressed people will watch their environment deteriorate, and do nothing about it. (I am not saying this is how it is, just proposing a possible causal mechanism.) A possible common-cause explanation could be that some places are designed "for people to feel happy", and those contain trees, but also other things (parks? accessible sidewalk? or perhaps those are simply places where many nice people live?) which make people happy.
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
Richer people live in areas with more trees? Or, if they control for wealth and racial group and all the rest, try something like "health-oriented people prefer being around trees?"
o_p 7y ago
It could be that overpopulated places make people anxious and places with trees are usually less populated.
BurningFrog 7y ago
> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees Rich people have gardens. Poor people liver crammed together in city slums. ...is one story you can tell. These things are hopelessly intertwined with confounding factors, and I never pay attention to them. The ones interesting enough to go viral and show up in my feed are of course extra suspicious.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
Potentially more wellbeing causes more independence causes the ability to live in less dense spaces with less support systems.

Interesting.. it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees. So what are the other possible arrows of causation? Maybe healthy people choose to live near trees?

tunesmith 7y ago

Or something else causes both healthy people and living near trees.

Symmetry 7y ago
The obvious one being wealthy people -> wealthy community | | v v good health trees
- arnonejoe 7y ago
  This is true. Leafy neighborhoods also tend to be wealthy enclaves.
- dahfizz 7y ago
  It's usually much cheaper to live outside of a city than inside.
- learc83 7y ago
  The article says they controlled for income.
  - jdietrich 7y ago
    That's not the same as controlling for socio-economic status. A millennial living in a city-center apartment and a boomer living in a paid-up house in the suburbs might have the same income, but they have very different life circumstances and experience very different levels of stress.
    - learc83 7y ago
      They also controlled for "age, sex, annual household income, economic status (eg, employed, retired, or unemployed), highest educational qualification, and couple status". Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. With a very large study size, and a huge result (30% difference) it's unlikely that it can be explained by socioeconomic status. The study discusses this by the way.
      - jdietrich 7y ago
        >Taken together those are likely to capture socio-economic status in all but a few edge cases. Socio-economic status is notoriously difficult to control for. https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/81-82/1/21/282643 https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/81-82/1/21/282643
        learc83 7y ago
        If this were a small study or found a small result, then edge cases like lower income millennials with no degree who live in inherited houses in wealthy areas with trees might skew the results. If you disagree with the studies methodology fine, but I'm satisfied that authors have done their due diligence with respect to socio-economic status.
        6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
        The authors, at least in OP, use "associated with" language.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  The problem with that is tree coverage drastically goes up again when you hit "broken washing machine on lawn" levels of poverty due to just the general amount of old growth in rural poor areas

Viliam1234 7y ago

> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees Why not? Maybe people who feel well are more likely to care about their environment, and e.g. organize protests when someone wants to remove trees from their neighborhood. Meanwhile, depressed people will watch their environment deteriorate, and do nothing about it. (I am not saying this is how it is, just proposing a possible causal mechanism.) A possible common-cause explanation could be that some places are designed "for people to feel happy", and those contain trees, but also other things (parks? accessible sidewalk? or perhaps those are simply places where many nice people live?) which make people happy.

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago

Richer people live in areas with more trees? Or, if they control for wealth and racial group and all the rest, try something like "health-oriented people prefer being around trees?"

o_p 7y ago

It could be that overpopulated places make people anxious and places with trees are usually less populated.

BurningFrog 7y ago

> it doesn't seem likely that wellbeing causes trees Rich people have gardens. Poor people liver crammed together in city slums. ...is one story you can tell. These things are hopelessly intertwined with confounding factors, and I never pay attention to them. The ones interesting enough to go viral and show up in my feed are of course extra suspicious.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

Potentially more wellbeing causes more independence causes the ability to live in less dense spaces with less support systems.