2026-09-23T06:57:00Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/110712 2023-07-11 col_2142_5131 col_2142_14737 com_2142_5130 com_2142_690 com_2142_397

Browning, Mattew McLafferty, Sara Van Riper, Carena Grigsby-Toussaint, Diana Becker, Douglas Allen 2021-09-17T02:34:41Z 2021-09-17T02:34:41Z 2023-09-17T02:34:57Z 2021-04-22 2021-05 Human exposure to natural settings holds numerous health benefits that are suspected or known to be substantial and wide-ranging, from simple outcomes such as improved sleep up to a reduced chance of mortality. This dissertation includes three studies that investigate the ability of nature exposure to extend beyond the health benefits into two higher-level effects that are in large part determined by health status: healthcare spending levels and opioid-related mortality rates. These studies employed an ecological and cross-sectional study design with counties in the United States with data from federal agencies in a series of geospatial regression models. The results show that counties with more green space (vegetated areas such as forests, parks, and fields), exhibit lower per-capita healthcare spending, but the same is not true of blue spaces (open bodies of water). Furthermore, green spaces were positively associated with opioid-related mortality in the third study. While these studies are ecological and therefore meant to serve mostly as a launching point for these research strands, the results do suggest that exposure to nature, or at least to green spaces, could confer benefits beyond improved health. Policymakers, urban planners and foresters, and others with a stake in health and healthcare policy may consider these results when designing policies and programs for a healthier society. Future research with data on individuals and other healthcare financing sources should be conducted to draw more definitive conclusions about these associations. Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2023-05-01 The student, Douglas Becker, accepted the attached license on 2021-04-21 at 12:25. The student, Douglas Becker, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-04-21 at 12:28. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-04-22 at 15:45. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16463 on 2021-09-16 at 17:04:17 Made available in DSpace on 2021-09-17T02:34:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 BECKER-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf: 1646440 bytes, checksum: a25300d04755d93e093ef36e71fafb27 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4211 bytes, checksum: c626ad9b3dd7f4dfd7da0d743acda032 (MD5) PROQUEST_LICENSE.txt: 4557 bytes, checksum: a6f40e82d7b53740ae433885bf4e9c13 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-04-22 Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 118555 Lift date: 2023-09-17T02:34:57Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system U of I Only application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110712 en Copyright 2021 Douglas Becker nature, green space, blue space, healthcare spending, opioid mortality Beyond nature and health: do the benefits of nature extend from health to healthcare spending and opioid-related mortality? text Thesis Natural Res & Env Sci Natural Res & Env Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.