Measuring Greenspace in Rural Areas for Studies of Birth Outcomes: A Comparison of Street View Data and Satellite Data

Using street view data, in replace of remotely sensed (RS) data, to study the health impact of greenspace has become popular. However, direct comparisons of these two methods of measuring greenspace are still limited, and their findings are inconsistent. On the other hand, almost all studies of greenspace focus on urban areas. The effectiveness of greenspace in rural areas remains to be investigated. In this study, we compared measures of greenspace based on the Google Street View data with those based on RS data by calculating the correlation between the two and evaluating their associations with birth outcomes. Besides the direct measures of greenness, we also compared the measures of environmental diversity, calculated with the two types of data. Our study area consists of the States of New Hampshire and Vermont, USA, which are largely rural. Our results show that the correlations between the two types of greenness measures were weak to moderate, and the greenness at an eye-level view largely reflects the immediate surroundings. Neither the street view data- nor the RS data-based measures identify the influence of greenspace on birth outcomes in our rural study area. Interestingly, the environmental diversity was largely negatively associated with birth outcomes, particularly gestational age. Our study revealed that in rural areas, the effectiveness of greenspace and environmental diversity may be considerably different from that in urban areas. Few studies directly compare the health impact of greenspace measured by two different methods in rural areas, one based on Google Street View data and the other based on remotely sensed data. To fill in the blank, we conducted the comparison in this study by calculating the correlation between the measurements of greenness and environmental diversity based on these two different data and evaluating the associations between these variables and birth outcomes in New Hampshire and Vermont, which are mostly rural areas of the United States. As a result, (a) the difference between the two types of greenspace was weak to moderate; (b) neither of the greenness measurements by two different data were significantly associated with birth outcomes, whereas environmental diversity measurements by two different data were largely negatively associated with gestation; (c) the effectiveness of greenspace and environmental diversity measured in rural areas may differ significantly from that in urban areas. We compared two methods for measuring greenspace in rural areas based on Google Street View data and remote sensing data, respectively The comparison was conducted by calculating the correlation between the two and their associations with birth outcomes in NH and VT, USA There is a considerable difference between the two types of greenspace measures, and neither significantly impacts birth outcomes