Patrick Kinney (United States of America)
Boston University School of Public Health
Environmental Health
Patrick Kinney is the Beverly A. Brown Professor of Urban Health at Boston University. His research examines the intersection of global environmental change and human health, with an emphasis on climate change and air pollution. His work on the human health effects of air pollution spans four decades, including studies of the effects of ozone and particulate matter on lung health and on daily mortality in U.S. cities. He also has led studies of ambient and household air pollution in Africa and China. He led a large randomized trial examining the potential health benefits of clean cooking technologies in rural Ghana. He created and directed the first climate and health program in the US at the Columbia University, where he pioneered studies examining how climate change could increase health risks from air pollution and extreme heat in the future. Since coming to BU in 2017, Dr. Kinney has focused on the health and climate benefits that can be achieved through mitigation and adaptation strategies such as increased green space. Dr. Kinney earned his doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he studied the effects of air pollution on lung function in children.

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 Conference Calendar

GLOBAL EXPOSURES TO URBAN GREEN SPACE

Session Name
0640 - Academic Sessions - Resilient 08: Resilient communities, clean air, nature inclusiveness (ID 84)
Session Type
Academic Sessions
Date
02/24/2022
Session Time
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Room

Hall C

Presenter
Lecture Time
04:10 PM - 04:20 PM

Abstract

Abstract Body

Evidence shows that green space in cities can benefit human health by reducing exposures to heat, noise, psychological stressors, and air pollution, and/or promoting healthful activities such as physical activity. Studies have linked green space exposure to a wide range of favorable health outcomes including improved mental health, reduced blood pressure, better self-perceived general health, higher birth weights, and lower risk of overall and cardiovascular mortality.

The objective of this project is to develop a global indicator for the extent of urban green space in world cities from the satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a measure of the density of vegetation. NDVI is a dimensionless number, with higher levels indicating increasing density of vegetation. We obtained quarterly NDVI from the NASA MODIS satellite, which provides images every 16 days at a 250-m resolution, and overlaid this with population and spatial extent data from over 500 global cities. This was done at five-year intervals from 2010 to 2020 to assess trends. Urban area spatial boundaries were defined using the Global Human Settlement program of the European Commission, which uses remote sensing and demographic data to define more than 10,000 urban centers worldwide. Data on population were collected from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN - Columbia University, which models the distribution of human population (counts and densities) on a continuous global raster surface with an output resolution of 30 arc-seconds (approximately 1 km at the equator). Four metrics were calculated for each urban area: Peak NDVI (maximum NDVI across all seasons); annual mean based on the four-season average NDVI; population weighted average based on peak NDVI; and population weighted average based on annual mean NDVI.

Peak NDVI averaged 0.45 across cities, ranging from 0.10 to 0.76 across cities. Among global regions, South-East-Asian cities had the highest peak and four-season NDVI, followed by cities in Europe and America. These data will serve as crucial indicators for access to green space across the globe for the benefit of human health, as well as climate resilience.

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