Assessment of Spatial Relationship between Social Health in Women of Mashhad and Urban Green Spaces: What Factors Affect Their Presence in Urban Green spaces?

Introduction
Nowadays, over 50% of the world population lives in cities. The adverse effects of urbanization on the citizen's health have emerged as a result of urbanization expansion. Social health is one of the health dimensions which has been included within the definition of "health" in 1974 by World Health Organization (WHO). Increased social health is associated with physical and mental health. Meantime, women are considered as high-risk group in terms of health for their diverse roles in society. Without appropriate social health, women cannot effectively play their individual and social roles. The studies have shown that attending at urban green space could improve social health. In other words, urban green spaces inject social benefits to cities. The presence of women in urban green space is influenced by individual and environmental factors including educational level and income. Concerning the environmental factors, it could be said that the quality of urban green space is more important for women than men. The influential factors on quality of urban green space and increase of women presence could be classified in three dimensions of structural- spatial, aesthetic and perceptional- emotional. Therefore, the research objectives are the investigation of the manner of spatial distribution of social health of women in Mashhad city; the evaluation of spatial autocorrelation of social heath of women and urban green space and the determination of factors affecting women presence in urban green space in individual and environmental dimensions.
Methodology
This is a mixed-method explanatory study in which quantitative method was used for evaluation of spatial communications and qualitative-quantitative method for identification of factors affecting women presence in urban green space.
In this study, just 16-64 years old women were considered since the spatial-social inequalities in health are maximized in this range. Keyes scale was used for evaluation of social health and 670 questionnaires were filled and retuned in Mashhad city. Urban green space is taken to meant the parks with an area over one hectare. Bivariate Moran index was used to determine the spatial relation of social health and urban green space and spatial analyses were performed using GIS and Geo Da software in Mashhad districts. After performing spatial self-correlation, High-Low cluster (area 7, districts 1 and 2) was realized with reverse spatial relation and Mirza Kuchak Khan Park was selected for interview and field study. 300-meter and 999-meter buffers were prepared from the intended park and for identification of effective factors, whether in individual or environmental dimension, the inhabitants of this area (up to 999 meter radius) were taken into account. For investigation of the relation between individual factors and presence in urban city space, ordinal regression test in SPSS was used and for identification of effective environmental factors, 17 semi-structured interviews were performed with the women living in the intended buffer through snowball technique and interviews were analyzed based on components of structural- spatial, aesthetics and perceptual- emotional dimensions.
Findings
The results indicated that women living in district 10 of area 3 (10-3), (8-3) and (9-2) have higher mean of social health and the mean social health of women in (8-2) and Samen district of area 1 is lower. Moran index was used to investigate the manner of spatial distribution of social health and it was obtained as 0.18, which indicates that social health distribution has been clustering. The results of bivariate Moran test showed that there is positive spatial relation between women social health and urban green space with coefficient of 0.23. If per capita urban green space increases, social health of women in Mashhad will increase. In this regard, five types of cluster in 8 municipality areas of Mashhad were constituted and the spatial relation was not meaningful in other areas. In district 7, areas 1 and 2, the inverse spatial relation was obtained and High-Low cluster was constructed. Therefore, the parks in these two areas were investigated and Mirza Kuchak Khan Park was selected as sample. Ordinal regression test was used to determine influential individual factors on presence in Mirza Kuchak Khan Park. The results indicated that from individual variables, lower level of education and higher income are meaningful in error level less than 0.05 and the relation is positive. In order to determine environmental factors, interviews with 17 women were performed based on snowball technique. In all analyses, it was tried to identify and present the least number of descriptive classes that, at the same time, had the highest compliance with diversity of opinions in interviews. The most frequently stated problems in structural-spatial dimension were lack of separate sport equipment for women in sport equipment components and lack of prayer room and unpleasant hygiene status of bathrooms in services components. In aesthetic dimension, the park condition was considered pleasant by women and in perceptual-emotional dimension among women security components, the presence of addicted people and Arabs were mentioned as the factors resulting in feeling of insecurity.
Conclusion
The research findings indicated positive spatial autocorrelation between social health and urban green space and suggested the possibility of increasing women presence in parks and consequently promoting their social health through improving parks' environmental condition. This study has applications for urban planners and managers since the quality of environment and the nature of developments are the main health factors. Moreover, the historical relation between urban planning and health dimensions has been emphasized. The researchers hope that the investigation of the relation between green space and social health could provide the ground for improving the quality of green spaces and therefore promoting social health of women in Mashhad. Moreover, the historical relation between urban planning and health dimensions has been emphasized. The researchers hope that the investigation of the relation between green space and social health could provide the ground for improving the quality of green spaces and therefore promoting social health of women in Mashhad.