Researchers plant trees in an experiment to lower rates of heart disease (2021)

I'm fully in favor of "make life less shitty" as a medical intervention.

Some cities will plant trees in the public areas near homes if homeowners request it:

California:

Cupertino https://www.cupertino.org/our-city/departments/public-works/...

L.A. https://www.cityplants.org/our-programs/

Gardena https://cityofgardena.org/planting-trees/

North Vancouver, BC https://www.dnv.org/community-environment/urban-tree-canopy-...

Massachusetts: https://www.maurbancanopy.org/tell-me-more/

Two people, a photographer and his wife, managed to plant 2 million trees in 318 million acres (129 million hectares).

https://t.co/qyViRbeyYO

A couple of organizations work toward the goal of planting more trees across the world:

https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/plant-...

https://www.arborday.org/about/

https://8billiontrees.com

https://trilliontrees.org

Here are more lists of charities that plant trees:

https://impactful.ninja/best-charities-for-planting-trees/

https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/best-charities-planting-...

The article does mention that correlation is not causation. But the fact that they are correlated is nonetheless encouraging.

It certainly makes towns prettier.

Yes. The Reichenbach Common Cause Principle [1] tells us that behind every correlation there is a confounding variable that causally influences both of the corrrelated variables, so the project may very well be onto something.

The article already hypothesises a few confounders (leaf hair trapping particles, plants sequestering pollutants in other ways) but psychological reasons could even turn out to be stronger, given how little of exercise is sufficient to offset cadio-vascular risks - more plants around make it more likely for people to go outside for walking or running.

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-Rpcc/

Trees are a good sound absorber. Which creates a healthier soundscape : less noise, reduced stress, lower rates of heart disease.

cf https://www.treehugger.com/how-do-trees-reduce-noise-polluti...

They can decrease stress and increase property value, both of which are probably correlated with lower risk of mortality.

Unless you're renting, I guess.

There's the rule about articles with question mark titles.

The answer is 'no'

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...