Blackmores Institute

Drawn from eight waves of the Monitor of Engagement with Natural Environment (MENE) survey that contained the Nature Connection Index, commissioned by Natural England, results from a total of 4,960 (n= 2,550 female) adults aged between 16 and 95 years were analysed and found that visiting natural spaces at least once a week (versus less frequent visits) was associated positively with general health.
 
 “Although consistent with studies observing higher levels of perceived health amongst individuals who intentionally spend time in nature, our findings extend prior research in two ways. Firstly, this is the first study, to our knowledge, that has observed this association whilst controlling for other types of nature contact and nature connectedness. Our findings suggest that environmental practices and policies, which encourage visits to natural spaces, may be important to translate the accessibility of greenspace into discernible improvements to health. 
 
 “Secondly, the effect size of weekly visits was larger than that of belonging to a higher socio-economic group. Given the recognised importance of this factor for health, we interpret the size of the visit frequency relationship to be practically meaningful in terms of public health, but more research on causality is needed,” the researchers explained.
 
 Interestingly, the study found the neighbourhood green space was negatively related to general health and unrelated to any of the subjective wellbeing or pro-environmental outcomes, also noting that previous research has shown mixed positive results.
 
 “Evidence of positive associations in previous research has also been mixed possibly because quantity metrics such as those used in our study do not account for quality and indicators of the quality of green space should be included in future research, where possible.
 
 “It is also possible that the mere presence of green space is simply not very important, whereas visiting green spaces, i.e. the active decisions to go outside is the key factor,” the researchers said.
 
 Previous study results observed that people in England living in the least green areas spend significantly more time in nature than those living in greener areas, contrary to common assumptions about greener areas facilitating more time in nature, emphasising the importance of distinguishing between presence and use of greenspace.
 
 Further results linked to pro-environmental behaviours found that visiting natural spaces at least once a week was associated with a higher propensity to engage in more common household pro-environmental behaviours such as recycling and buying ecological products.
 
 “Globally there is a trend towards people losing touch with the natural world at the very moment when research is demonstrating just how dependent human health and wellbeing is on natural ecosystems. The current research broadly supports the contention that maintaining contact with nature is positively related to an individual's own health and wellbeing, as well as their propensity to act in ways that protect the health of the planet. 
 
 “Moreover, we found several instances where associations between outcomes and the same levels of contact were moderated by psychological connectedness with nature. Thus, nature contact may be more effective if accompanied by a positive disposition towards the environment.
 
 “The complexity of our findings suggests that interventions increasing both contact with, and connection to nature, are likely to be needed in order to achieve synergistic improvements to human and planetary health,” the authors concluded.
 
 
 Source:
 J. Environ. Psychol. 2020. DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101389">10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101389</a>

New British research has just been released investigating the relationships between nature contact, psychological connectedness, health, subjective wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours.

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