A study from the University of Glasgow in Scotland suggested that places with green spaces such as parks, forests and playing fields have lower health inequities between rich and poor people.

Researchers looked at 41 million people in England below retirement age and obtained individual death records for 366,348 people to determine the association between exposure to green space, income, all-cause mortality and cause-specific death (circulatory disease, lung cancer and suicide) from 2001 to 2005. In the greenest areas the health gap between the richest and poorest people was about half as large as that in the least green areas.

“The implications of this study are clear: Environments that promote good health might be crucial in the fight to reduce health inequalities,” says Richard Mitchell, MD, the study’s lead author.

Learn how to make your area more green here.