Plant a tree, improve your health: Editorial
A study of Toronto’s tree canopy finds that living in a neighbourhood with “street” trees improves your health.

TheStar.com
Aug. 25, 2015

Last spring, when residents in a “forest” neighbourhood of Lawrence Park were trying to prevent 349 trees from being cut down to make way for sewers and sidewalks, they may have been fighting for a lot more than a leafy environment. They may have been fighting for their health, if not their very lives.
That’s because a study of Toronto neighbourhoods, published in the journal Scientific Reports, concludes that people who live on a tree-lined block are less likely to report conditions such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

In fact, the researchers, including Faisal Moola, a director at the David Suzuki Foundation, found the self-reported health benefits of having 10 more trees on your block are akin to a $10,000 salary increase, or moving to a neighbourhood with a $10,000 higher median income, or being seven years younger.

There’s more and more evidence that trees are good for us, in ways that aren’t always obvious. That’s another reason to support the city’s goal of increasing Toronto’s tree canopy, which was badly damaged in the 2013 ice storm, to cover 40 per cent of the city from the current level of 26 per cent. It’s something that could address societal issues, as well as improve the health of residents.

For example, the study found the health of people in neighbourhoods that are economically poor but rich in trees more closely matched that found in affluent areas. And those in richer neighbourhoods without trees had health reports resembling those of people in poorer communities. Notes Moola: “It’s a lot easier to invest in programs to plant trees than it is to raise the median income of everybody in the city.”

It’s not just the Toronto study’s psychologists and environmentalists who found that “street trees” improve health. TD Economics reported last year that Toronto’s “urban forest represents an important investment in the city’s environmental condition, human health and societal well-being.”

Those health benefits may be something that people in Portland, Ore., recognize intrinsically. One study of that city’s neighbourhoods found homes with “street trees” sold for an average of $7,130 more than ones in the same community without them. Researchers theorized that trees are a way of modifying the urban environment — and that can have huge public health consequences.

The Toronto researchers don’t know exactly why people accrue such large health benefits from trees. It could be that they are cleaning the air, encouraging people to go outside and exercise more, or simply their poetry-inspiring esthetic beauty.

Whatever the reason, go out and plant a tree. Your neighbours will thank you – and so will your heart.