Seite - 93 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

93 The reduction of the impact of negative environmental conditions is hypothesised to occur through providing ecosystem services, as presented above. In particular, van den Bosch and Ode Sang (2017) showed that urban green space contributes to the health of city residents by decreasing all-cause and cardiovascular disease–related mortality, adverse birth outcomes and mental disorders, particularly through provid- ing regulating and provisioning ESS and through cultural ESS linked to socio- behavioural pathways. The authors, however, did not find significant results for sufficient evidence for stress reduction and physical activity as the mediating pathway. They conclude that the impact of improving environmental conditions through urban green spaces is often spatially explicit, with an unequal distribution of envi- ronmental burdens and goods. In particular, disadvantaged and minority groups often bear higher environmental burdens such as noise or air pollution (Wolch et  al. 2014), while they have less access to urban green spaces and the benefits they pro- vide (Cook et  al. Chap. 11, this volume). Clark et  al. (2014) showed that low-income people are disproportionately exposed to air pollution in the USA, whereas Richardson et  al. (2013) demonstrated a similar relationship for particular areas in Europe. Wolch et  al. (2005) found that park availability is reduced in deprived neighbourhoods. Street trees, as a particular part of the green infrastructure net- work, have also been found to be differently distributed according to neighbourhood socio-economic status (Landry and Chakraborty 2009). Interestingly, Timperio et  al. (2007) could not find any statistically significant relationship that urban green spaces are more scarce in low-income or minority neighbourhoods in Australia (Timperio et  al. 2007). A recent review of park access by Rigolon (2016) also showed inconclusive findings for distance to parks but striking differences for size and quality of parks, with smaller park sizes and lower quality of parks for neigh- bourhoods of low socio-economic and minority groups. This suggests a more com- plex link between urban green space availability and accessibility and socio-economic differences, which depends on the indicators used for measuring greenness, avail- ability and quality features of urban green spaces. The relationships between environmental burdens, green space accessibility, socio-economic factors and potential health outcomes are still not clearly under- stood, and vary between studies. A structured systematic review is presented in this chapter to help close this gap in the research. In particular, effects of urban green spaces on urban health depending on accessibility and socio-economic status/trends are investigated. The term ‘socio-economic confounder’ is used in this chapter to describe factors that have a potential effect on health and that may even over-ride a potential association between urban green space and health outcomes. 5.2 Methods A systematic, structured and quantitative literature review of peer-reviewed articles that were published in international scientific journals was conducted in November 2017. This review identified 140 papers of which the highest proportion were 5 The Influence of  Socio-economic and  Socio-demographic Factors in  the  Association…