Objectives: Grief is an understudied topic in Chinese context, as compared to Western cultures. Apart from the personal factors, environmental factors that influence bereavement outcomes are barely researched in Chinese population. This study endeavors to investigate the effect of ratios of green space on the relationship between anxiety and social support among older bereaved people in rural China.
Methods: A sample of 352 older residents in widowhood was clustered through quota sampling. They were addressed with face-to-face interviews and lived in rural areas in Zhejiang Province of China. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to calculate greening rates of communities where the participants lived in. Hierarchical linear model (HLM) was afterward used to identify the environmental effect of ratios of green spaces on the association between anxiety and social support.
Results: Results from the intercepts-and-slopes-as-outcomes model showed that a significant environmental effect of ratios of green spaces on the slope of the relationship between anxiety and social support existed. That is, in the places of higher ratios of green spaces, the buffering effect of social support on anxiety was weakened, while in the communities of lower ratios of green spaces, such association was incremental.  
Conclusion: The results derived from the bereaved participants in rural China were inconsistent with other studies where the incremented mental health in greener areas were reported. Other indirect effects leading to the weakened association between anxiety and social support in greener communities were considered to be possible.