A decade-long study involving 2.3 million adults in Wales found that greater exposure to green and blue spaces (GBS) is linked to reduced rates of common mental disorders (CMD), particularly among socio-economically deprived individuals. The findings suggest that increased access to GBS not only has mental health benefits but can also offer additional ecological advantages, informing policymakers on the value of GBS in community planning.
Author summary Why was this study done? Joint replacements are among the more frequent elective surgeries performed in developed settings. In England, inequalities in provision of joint replacement surgery were reported more than a decade ago, followed by a national effort to reduce these inequalities. In a context of increasingly strained National Health Service funding and hospital budgets, alongside prolonged efforts to increase surgical capacity, it is unclear what impact these have had on inequalities in provision of joint replacement for osteoarthritis. What did the researchers do and find? We conducted an analysis of the National Joint Registry using all primary hip and knee replacements for osteoarthritis performed from 2007 to 2017 in England, merged with the Office for National Statistics official population statistics, to investigate inequalities in provision of surgery according to deprivation by patient area of residence, age, sex, and trends in these inequalities ov