result
Outcomes Research
Clean Air and Green Space
is Nature’s Prescription
Health care providers have long advised their patients to adopt healthy diets, regular exercise and good sleep habits to reduce cardiometabolic risks. However, an equally important factor is the environment in which patients live. The level of air pollution in their community and the availability of safe, accessible places for physical activity can significantly impact health outcomes.
Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD
Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD, Jerold B. Katz Investigator and Associate Professor of Medicine, is pioneering research to identify which neighborhoods correlate with higher risks of heart disease, aiming to tailor medical care more personally to each patient's living conditions.
Exposure to particulate matter air pollution of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) is a major determinant of cardiometabolic disease. The Global Burden of Disease assessment estimates that 20% of global Type 2 diabetes cases are related to chronic exposure to PM2.5. This exposure is also linked with insulin resistance, blood pressure elevation and childhood obesity. Al-Kindi's detailed analysis on this topic was published in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
With 99% of the global population, including some residents in the Greater Houston area, living in environments with unsafe air pollution levels; Al-Kindi is working to understand the connection between air pollution and other environmental factors with cardiovascular disease, aiming to develop mitigation strategies.
Even in areas without excessive air pollution, the human-made structures and spaces where we live, work and play are closely linked with cardiovascular health. Previous studies often relied on broad population data or single metrics, neglecting the complex interplay of neighborhood characteristics.
The implications of this work are profound, offering scalable tools to assess environmental impacts on heart health, potentially guiding interventions to tackle health disparities and improve cardiovascular outcomes across the U.S. communities.
Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Al-Kindi's team analyzed data from 1.07 million patients in the Houston Methodist Learning Health System Outpatient Registry. Each patient was assigned a NatureScore™, which measures the quality and quantity of nature in their area, and a WalkScore, assessing neighborhood walkability. The study, published in JACC: Advances, revealed that living in highly walkable neighborhoods with ample nature exposure significantly reduced the odds of cardiovascular risk factors.
Further, Al-Kindi employed deep learning to analyze Google satellite imagery across seven U.S. cities, linking built environment features to neighborhood-level heart disease rates, as published in the European Heart Journal and JAMA Cardiology. These machine vision-derived features better predict heart disease prevalence than traditional demographic and socioeconomic data alone.
“The implications of this work are profound, offering scalable tools to assess environmental impacts on heart health, potentially guiding interventions to tackle health disparities and improve cardiovascular outcomes across U.S. communities,” said Al-Kindi.
Share this story
Donna Ostermayer, PhD
May 2025
Share this story
Related Articles