This study analyzed the relationship between the environmental and ecological assessment grade of the Environmental Conservation Value Assessment Map (ECVAM), which comprehensively assess the environmental impact of the national land, and health. It s...
This study analyzed the relationship between the environmental and ecological assessment grade of the Environmental Conservation Value Assessment Map (ECVAM), which comprehensively assess the environmental impact of the national land, and health. It selected representative diseases among cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, pharyngitis, and environmental diseases in the areas with environmental and ecological grade 1 by the ECVAM and analyzed the relationship between the environmentally excellent region and the health. It extracted the environmentally and ecologically outstanding areas within 300 m, 500 m 1 km, 3 km, and 5 km from the downtown and analyzed the correlation to examine the effect of the environmentally and ecologically outstanding areas by distance from the downtown, where people live and work, on the health. The correlation analysis used the Quasi-Poisson regression with the average income level of municipalities and the municipality-level average atmospheric pollutant concentrations calculated from the national-level atmospheric pollutant concentrations, which interpolated the average atmospheric pollutant concentration obtained from the national measurement network to the national level, as the confounding variables. The analysis used the number of treatments for each disease in the municipality level divided by the population of the municipality to unify the basic unit. The environmental and ecological analysis results were also divided by the area of each municipality to convert it to the area ratio as the basic unit.
The analysis results are described as follows: The correlation of 21 diseases selected for the analysis of the correlation between the area ratio of the environmentally and ecologically outstanding region and the treatment ratio of each disease. The analysis results showed that eleven diseases, such as respiratory tuberculosis, COPD, pneumonia, hypertension, stroke, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, ischemic heart disease, rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, and asthma were negatively correlated. Of these diseases, hypertension, COPD, pneumonia, myocardial infarction, ischemic heart disease, and asthma were negatively correlated with the area ratio of environmental and ecological grade 1 within a certain distance, such as 300 m, 500 m, 1 km, 3 km, and 5 km from the downtown. Such analysis results indicated that the treatment ratio of each of 11 diseases was low as the area ratio of the environmentally and ecologically outstanding region as high. Moreover, regarding the distance from the downtown, the treatment ratio of the six diseases was lower when environmentally and ecologically outstanding regions were larger within the shorter distance from the downtown, and the negative correlation was stronger in that case.
Additionally, we conducted the decision-making tree and random forest regression to identify the evaluation factors of the additionally extracted six diseases. The results showed that residential region, commercial region, and industrial region in the municipalities were also correlated to the health, and the atmospheric quality of the municipality was also highly correlated to the health. NO2, O3, CO, and PM10, in particular, showed a high correlation, and the additional correlation analysis confirmed that the atmospheric pollutant concentration was also closely related to the environmental and ecological evaluation results.
The analysis results of the relationship between the people’s health and the environmental factors of the land can be utilized by the integrated land-environmental management plan, such as the Fifth National Environmental Master Plan and the Fifth National Master Plan. The spatial plans, such as basic urban plan and urban management plan that consider both conservation and development of urban areas, must include measures to protect the environmentally and ecologically outstanding regions near the downtown area. Urban areas that do not have nearby environmentally and ecologically outstanding regions should secure green spaces using various methods such as urban regeneration and manage them to transform them into excellent environmental and ecological excellent regions in the future.
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