Evidence

The ‘Garden for the Future’ project aimed to redesign an outdated, inaccessible and underused outdoor play area at the Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle. The project was sparked by a young patient who wrote a letter to the directorate asking for ‘a garden area where staff and patients can play and grow vegetables’. Green spaces contribute to physical and mental health, as well as helping to cool urban environments and reduce the health impacts of air pollution. They are also important spaces for children’s play, learning and development.

Urban green spaces play a vital role in mitigating heat-related health risks, offering a potential strategy for urban planning to address climate change and enhance public health. Additional research is required to thoroughly comprehend the magnitude of urban greenery’s impact on heat-related morbidity and mortality, as well as its interplay with other variables, including air pollution, socioeconomic status, among others.

Urban tree canopy is associated with lower dementia risk, but no mediation analysis has been attempted to reveal potential mechanisms. We examined 3,639 dementia diagnoses in 109,688 participants of the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study. Adjusted models indicated ≥20% tree canopy lowered the odds of developing dementia by 14% over 11 years (Odds Ratio = 0.86, 95%CI = 0.79-0.93). Association between tree canopy and dementia was partially mediated by physical activity (4.5%) and absences of psychological distress (5.7%), social support (2.9%), sleep duration (2.3%) and diabetes (1.8%). Social loneliness and absence of heart disease or hypertension did not mediate the tree canopy-dementia association.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many therapists and their clients found it uncomfortable being indoors with others for extended periods. As a result, some mental health counselors pivoted to having their sessions outdoors, referred to as “Walk and talk therapy”. This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to understand adult clients’ (n = 7) lived experiences of walk and talk therapy.

There is a lack of systematic research on the effectiveness of outdoor arts therapies. This article presents a systematic, qualitative evaluation of an outdoors arts therapies intervention for adults with mental health problems in the United Kingdom.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the lived experience of a group of individuals who participated in an adventure therapy project, as an adjunct to their routine clinical care with an Early Intervention Service (EIS) for psychosis.

Nature-based solutions (NbS), including green social prescribing (GSP), are sustainable ways to address health and wellbeing, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the strain on healthcare. NbS require national and local cross-sector coordination across complex, interrelated systems, but little is known about the specific challenges this poses for community-led NbS.

As the incidence of immune-mediated diseases has increased rapidly in developed societies, there is an unmet need for novel prophylactic practices to fight against these maladies. This study is the first human intervention trial in which urban environmental biodiversity was manipulated to examine its effects on the commensal microbiome and immunoregulation in children.

Exposure to green space has beneficial effects on several cognitive and behavioral aspects. However, to our knowledge, no study addressed intelligence as outcome. We investigated whether the level of urbanicity can modify the association of residential green space with intelligence and behavior in children.

Green spaces have a range of health benefits, but little is known in relation to cognitive development in children. This study, based on comprehensive characterization of outdoor surrounding greenness (at home, school, and during commuting) and repeated computerized cognitive tests in schoolchildren, found an improvement in cognitive development associated with surrounding greenness, particularly with greenness at schools. This association was partly mediated by reductions in air pollution. Our findings provide policymakers with evidence for feasible and achievable targeted interventions such as improving green spaces at schools to attain improvements in mental capital at population level.