In the United States, urban neighborhoods with primarily white residents tend to have more trees than neighborhoods whose residents are predominantly people of color. A new analysis has now linked this inequity to a disparity in heat-related illness and death, researchers report April 8 in npj Urban Sustainability.
Neighborhoods with predominantly people of color have 11 percent less tree cover on average than majority white neighborhoods, and air temperatures are about 0.2 degrees Celsius higher during summer, urban ecologist Rob McDonald of The Nature Conservancy and colleagues found. Trees already prevent 442 excess deaths and about 85,000 doctor visits annually in these neighborhoods. In majority white neighborhoods, trees save
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