GUEST VOCALS: Dr Richard Mitchell

It's my job to research the health gap between richer and poorer people. This gap persists and grows in Scotland, the UK and the world as a whole. My particular take on it is to explore what influence the environment around us has on health.

I've been doing this a while now and, until relatively recently, it was not the cheeriest of jobs The discoveries which public health scientists make tend to be bad news; we always seem to show that "the health gap has grown" or that "being fat is even worse for you than we thought".

This is because our approach is usually to ask the negative question: what makes people sick? These days, however, I spend a lot more of my time asking what keeps people well? Not only is this a much cheerier way to live, it should also lead to alternative perspectives on how we can help people stay healthy and narrow the health gap.

The idea that green spaces (such as woodlands, parks and playing fields) are healthy is not new. However, evidence for the health benefits of these environments is comparatively scarce and evidence is the magic factor which gets those in power to pay attention.

This week, we published evidence in the Lancet that the health gap between richer and poorer people is narrower in neighbourhoods with more green space. We found that in the most green areas, the health gap between the richest and poorest people was about half as big as that in the least green areas. What's particularly exciting is that we measured the health gap using the risk of dying young. This isn't a difference in how people feel in greener areas, it's a difference in how long they live.

Green spaces encourage exercise, which is good for mental and physical health. They also have the ability to protect us from stress and to promote healing. How does this translate into less inequality in health? In green areas, everyone can access an environment that helps keep them healthy and wards off the effects of modern life. However, in less green areas, access to health-giving environments may depend more on wealth; exercise must be bought at the gym, woodlands accessed elsewhere by car.

So, the next time there is a planning permission argument in which a local green space is at risk, bear in mind that the green space is worth protecting because it is making a contribution to your health, and those of the people around you.

Dr Richard Mitchell is a reader in health inequalities, public health and health policy at the University of Glasgow