Quanto mais verde, melhor? A relação entre as áreas verdes e doenças neurodegenerativas no Brasil

Abstract

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), represent major public health problems in Brazil, especially in the context of accelerated population aging. Scientific evidence suggests that environmental factors, such as the presence of green areas (GA), may play a protective role against cognitive decline. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between GA and mortality rates from AD and PD in Brazil between 2014 and 2023. This is a quantitative, ecological, correlational, and retrospective study conducted using secondary data aggregated by Brazilian regions, states, and municipalities. Mortality data were obtained from DATASUS, population and socioeconomic information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), and GA data from the MapBiomas Brazil platform. Mortality rates were standardized by population. Descriptive statistics were applied, and after verifying data non-normality using the Shapiro–Wilk test, Spearman’s correlation was used. To assess the predictive potential of GA, simple linear regressions were performed. States were organized into quadrants based on the median percentage of GA (48.29%) and the Human Development Index (HDI) (0.728), and Poisson regression was applied to estimate prevalence ratios (PR) for high mortality. The results indicated a strong inverse correlation between GA and mortality from AD (r = −0.961; p = 0.009) and PD (r = −0.959; p = 0.010) across Brazilian regions. Linear regression showed that GA explained 50.6% of the variability in PD mortality (R² = 0.506; p < 0.001) and 50.4% in AD mortality (R² = 0.504; p < 0.001). Poisson regression revealed that municipalities with low GA had a 36% higher probability of high mortality from AD (PR = 1.36; 95% CI: 1.16–1.60; p < 0.001), while low HDI increased the probability of high mortality from AD (PR = 1.19; p = 0.030) and PD (PR = 1.19; p = 0.033). It is concluded that greater availability of GA is associated with lower mortality rates from NDDs in Brazil, reinforcing the importance of natural environments as a complementary strategy for health promotion, prevention of cognitive decline, and support for public health policies.