Database

Greenspace is a critical feature of a healthy built environment. Exposure to greenspace fosters improved wellness and health among living organisms. This paper introduces the Health: Epigenetics, Greenspace, and Stress (HEGS) conceptual model which seeks to provide greater understanding of these processes and to identify key gaps in the field regarding the epigenetic influences underlying how greenspace exposure impacts stress and health.

While many studies have found positive correlations between greenness and human health, rural Central Appalachia is an exception. The region has high greenness levels but poor health. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a possible explanation for this paradox: three sets of factors overwhelming or attenuating the health benefits of greenness. These include environmental (e.g., steep typography and limited access to green space used for outdoor recreation), social (e.g., chronic poverty, declining coal industry, and limited access to healthcare), and psychological and behavioral factors (e.g., perceptions about health behaviors, healthcare, and greenness).

How do we help seriously and chronically ill children and adolescents find hope and courage to get through illness and treatment? How do we greet them? What surroundings and activities do we offer them? And how may these greetings, surroundings, and activities facilitate a belief in their own capacity to help themselves? The Outdoor Care Retreat is a cabin bordering the hospital ground created to meet the needs of admitted patients and their families.

This study investigated how a 40-minute walk in nature versus an urban environment affects attention and brain activity. Participants who walked in nature reported a more restorative experience and showed enhanced neural activity related to executive control, as measured by EEG. In contrast, the urban group did not show this neural improvement. These results suggest that time in nature can boost executive attention at the neural level, offering insight into how natural environments help restore mental focus.

This study explores how creativity can help preschool children develop environmental awareness and take action for sustainability. Conducted in a Greek kindergarten, the research used an art-based project to encourage young learners to identify environmental problems at their school. Visual art served both as a teaching method and a research tool. The results showed that creative thinking was strengthened when students were given space to explore ideas and work together. The study highlights the importance of using imaginative and reflective teaching methods, supported by an encouraging teacher, to foster creativity in early environmental education.

Large-scale commercial farmers and small scale “hobby” farmers engage in growing crops for subsistence and survival for themselves, their families, communities, and beyond. We suggest there may be a collective physical, emotional, and spiritual draw to farming that is interwoven with occupational engagement. With an increasing interest in community practice as well as environmental and social sustainability, occupational therapy’s role in supporting the farming community is important to consider.

Humanity is undergoing a monumental shift. People have rapidly moved from a largely natural, outdoor existence to life in built, urban settings. Most places where people live and work differ dramatically from the ones we occupied for 99.9% of human history, and our current surroundings often physically separate us from the natural world.

Place attachment and meaning are important, though rarely acknowledged, contributors to personal mental health and community cohesion.

The 3-30-300 rule offers benchmarks for cities to promote equitable nature access. It dictates that individuals should see three trees from their dwelling, have 30 % tree canopy in their neighborhood, and live within 300 m of a high-quality green space. Implementing this demands thorough measurement, monitoring, and evaluation methods, yet little guidance is currently available to pursue these actions.

This study highlights the wide-ranging health and cognitive benefits of spending time in nature, such as improved mental health and executive function. However, most research has focused on limited populations and overlooks cultural differences in how nature is perceived. As a result, implementing nature-based policies can be challenging in diverse communities. The authors recommend that such policies be flexible and equity-focused to meet varying community needs while maximizing the benefits of nature contact.

Concern about humanity’s detachment from nature has spawned a global push to increase the availability of green spaces within cities.

The conflict and discord between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois regarding their premise and approach to racial uplift for Black Americans have been very well documented.

This study compares the experience of therapy in the Outdoor Care Retreat (OCR)—an architect-designed cabin in a natural setting behind the Oslo University Hospital in Norway—with therapy in a traditional hospital setting.

A trauma-informed approach to disaster recovery recognizes the potential impacts of trauma, promotes resilience to protect against retraumatization, and can support catering the needs of disaster survivors in affected communities.

The schoolyard environment provides key opportunities to promote physical activity and socioemotional development for children. Schoolyards can also serve as a community park resource outside of school hours.

Given the global burden of mental health issues, new solutions are needed to promote mental health. Nature exposure represents a promising option to promote mental health, but the mechanisms are poorly understood.

Picture a 2-mile-long, 200-foot-wide parkway bordered by rows of Maple and Elm trees with a bridleway down the middle that connects to a 350-acre park northward and a 56-acre park southward.

The role of neighbourhood nature in promoting good health is increasingly recognised in policy and practice, but consistent evidence for the underlying mechanisms is lacking.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic rendered daily life overwhelmingly difficult for many children. Given the compelling evidence for the physical and mental health benefits of interaction with nature, might it be the case that time spent interacting with nature buffered the negative effects of the pandemic for children?

This study applied a Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) framework and Extended Parallel Process Model to explore respondents’ emotional and behavioral responses to video treatments that messaged varied outcomes for coral reef health and pro-environmental behavioral adaption.