Rates of asthma hospitalization tended to be lower in neighborhoods with more street trees, but the relationship wasn't statistically significant; nevertheless, this suggests that trees aren't a major contributor to asthma attacks, Lovasi said.
A "natural experiment" set to take place over the next decade will help to answer the question of whether street trees really do make for healthier kids; New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has launched an effort to plant a million new trees by 2017, and Lovasi and her colleagues are now working with the city government to study neighborhood health as the project progresses.
SOURCE: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, May 2008.
