Evaluating the feasibility of "Friends in Nature," a complex nature-based social intervention to address loneliness and quality of life in six cities worldwide.

Background: Loneliness, a major public health concern, could be alleviated through social interventions with nature contact as a primary component. "Friends in Nature" is a complex nature-based social intervention designed to be implemented as part of "Reimagining Environments for Connection and Engagement: Testing Actions for Social Prescribing in Natural Spaces" (RECETAS). This project aims to alleviate loneliness and promote health-related quality of life in six different geographic areas worldwide.

The MINT Program: A Mixed-Method Approach to Identifying Nature-Based Resources to Promote Adolescent Parent Social and Psychological Well-Being.

Background: Adolescent parents are at an increased risk for loneliness and mental health challenges compared to childless peers. Nature-based interventions are shown to promote social connectedness.

Aim: To identify elements of a nature-based intervention to reduce loneliness and foster nature connection among pregnant and parenting adolescents.

Developing a new tool to capture the nature dose to reduce loneliness and improve quality of life.

Recognition of the health benefits of nature contact has increased. Simultaneously, growing numbers of people worldwide experience loneliness. There is a movement towards prescribing nature-based activities to improve/promote social connections, health, and quality of life.

A process evaluation of a randomized-controlled trial of community gardening to improve health behaviors and reduce stress and anxiety.

As part of the Community Activation for Prevention (CAPS) randomized controlled trial (RCT) of community gardening, we conducted a process evaluation to assess the implementation of a community gardening intervention over nine months, as measured by reach, fidelity (delivery, receipt, enactment), and acceptability. Evaluation instruments included repeated semi-structured interviews with study participants, direct observation of community garden sites, and an exit survey of participants. Primary outcomes were diet, physical activity, and anthropometry; secondary outcomes were stress and anxiety.

Nature-based social interventions to address loneliness among vulnerable populations: a common study protocol for three related randomized controlled trials in Barcelona, Helsinki, and Prague within the RECETAS European project.

Background: The negative effects of loneliness on population health and wellbeing requires interventions that transcend the medical system and leverage social, cultural, and public health system resources. Group-based social interventions are a potential method to alleviate loneliness. Moreover, nature, as part of our social and health infrastructure, may be an important part of the solutions that are needed to address loneliness.

Nature-based biopsychosocial resilience: An integrative theoretical framework for research on nature and health.

Nature-based solutions including urban forests and wetlands can help communities cope better with climate change and other environmental stressors by enhancing social-ecological resilience. Natural ecosystems, settings, elements and affordances can also help individuals become more personally resilient to a variety of stressors, although the mechanisms underpinning individual-level nature-based resilience, and their relations to social-ecological resilience, are not well articulated. We propose 'nature-based biopsychosocial resilience theory' (NBRT) to address these gaps.

Effects of a community gardening intervention on diet, physical activity, and anthropometry outcomes in the USA (CAPS): an observer-blind, randomised controlled trial.

Background: Unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and social disconnection are important modifiable risk factors for non-communicable and other chronic diseases, which might be alleviated through nature-based community interventions. We tested whether a community gardening intervention could reduce these common health risks in an adult population that is diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Methods: In this observer-blind, randomised, controlled trial, we recruited individuals who were on Denver Urban Garden waiting lists for community gardens in Denver and Aurora (CO, USA), aged 18 years or older, and had not gardened in the past 2 years.

Rationale, Feasibility, and Acceptability of the Meeting in Nature Together (MINT) Program: A Novel Nature-Based Social Intervention for Loneliness Reduction with Teen Parents and Their Peers.

Recently, there has been an increase in feelings of loneliness and mental health conditions among adolescents. Within this population, parenting teens are at an increased risk for these conditions. Outdoor experiences are shown to be an antidote to loneliness and a way to promote social connectedness by amplifying the processes for supporting social relationships.

Thinking Health-related Behaviors in a Climate Change Context: A Narrative Review.

Background: Human activities have changed the environment so profoundly over the past two centuries that human-induced climate change is now posing serious health-related threats to current and future generations. Rapid action from all scientific fields, including behavioral medicine, is needed to contribute to both mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change.

Purpose: This article aims to identify potential bi-directional associations between climate change impacts and health-related behaviors, as well as a set of key actions for the behavioral medicine community.

Understanding Emerging Environmental Health Concerns and Environmental Public Health-Tracking Priorities Among State and Local Professionals in Colorado.

Context: Colorado is experiencing dramatic changes related to population growth, climate change, and expanded industrial activity. Local and state public health professionals are trying to address a growing array of unique public health issues with stagnant or limited resources.

Objectives: To understand, through perspectives from local and state public health professionals, the alignment of contemporary environmental and community health issues with state and local capacity and state environmental public health-tracking priorities.

Improving lifestyles sustainability through community gardening: results and lessons learnt from the JArDinS quasi-experimental study.

Background: Despite an increasing number of studies highlighting the health benefits of community gardening, the literature is limited by cross-sectional designs. The "JArDinS" quasi-experimental study aimed to assess the impact of community garden participation on the adoption of more sustainable lifestyles among French adults.

Methods: Individuals entering a community garden in Montpellier (France) in 2018 (n = 66) were compared with pairwise matched individuals with no experience in community gardening (n = 66).

Feasibility of collection and analysis of microbiome data in a longitudinal randomized trial of community gardening.

We explored the feasibility of collecting and analyzing human microbiome data in a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of community gardening. Participants were randomly assigned to gardening (N = 8) or control (N = 8). Participants provided stool, mouth, hand and forehead microbiome samples at six timepoints.

A Study of Perceived Nature, Shade and Trees and Self-Reported Physical Activity in Denver.

(1) Background: Current evidence on the association between greenery and physical activity (PA) remains inconsistent. Most studies on this association use objective measures of greenness, which do not reveal people's perceptions of greenness in neighborhoods, or the role of quality components of greenness, such as shade, trees, and the presence of nature on this association. (2) Methods: Drawing on data from the Neighborhood Environment and Health Survey-a cross-sectional population-based survey of Denver residents in 2007-we examined which measures of greenness (perceived and objective) correlated with the self-reported PA.

Perceptions of the Built Environment and Support for Policies That Promote Physical Activity.

Background: To assess how perceptions of the community built environment influence support for community policies that promote physical activity (PA).

Methods: A national cross-sectional survey assessed perceptions of the local built environment and support of community policies, including school and workplace policies, promoting PA. A random digit-dialed telephone survey was conducted in US counties selected on Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data for high or low prevalence of obesity and inactivity.

Dog ownership, the natural outdoor environment and health: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: Dog owners walking their dog in natural outdoor environments (NOE) may benefit from the physical activity facilitated by dog walking and from time spent in nature. However, it is unclear whether dog owners receive additional health benefits associated with having access to NOE above the physical activity benefit of walking with their dog. We investigated associations between dog ownership, walking, time spent in NOE and health and whether these associations differed among those with good and poor access to NOE and those living in green and less green areas.

Gardening and age-related weight gain: Results from a cross-sectional survey of Denver residents.

This study examined whether gardening modifies the association between age and body mass index (BMI). We used data from the Neighborhood Environments and Health Survey, which was conducted in Denver (N = 469) between 2006 and 2007. We fit two general linear mixed models.

Amplifying Health Through Community Gardens: A Framework for Advancing Multicomponent, Behaviorally Based Neighborhood Interventions.

The article presents a framework for understanding the relationship between community garden participation, and the myriad ways gardens and participation lead to emotional, social, and health impacts. Existing empirical research relating community gardens to health behaviors, such as physical activity and diet, and longer-term chronic disease-related outcomes is summarized. The research areas discussed include the effects of community garden participation on individual, social, emotional, and environmental processes; health behaviors including diet and physical activity; and health outcomes such as self-rated health, obesity, and mental health.

How to Identify Success Among Networks That Promote Active Living.

Objectives: We evaluated organization- and network-level factors that influence organizations' perceived success. This is important for managing interorganizational networks, which can mobilize communities to address complex health issues such as physical activity, and for achieving change.

Methods: In 2011, we used structured interview and network survey data from 22 states in the United States to estimate multilevel random-intercept models to understand organization- and network-level factors that explain perceived network success.

Municipal Officials' Participation in Built Environment Policy Development in the United States.

Purpose: This study examined municipal officials' participation in built environment policy initiatives focused on land use design, transportation, and parks and recreation.

Design: Web-based cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Eighty-three municipalities with 50,000 or more residents in eight states.

Support for physical activity policies and perceptions of work and neighborhood environments: variance by BMI and activity status at the county and individual levels.

Purpose: To examine support for local policies encouraging physical activity and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics by physical activity and weight status of respondents across U.S. counties.

Local Wellness Policy 5 years later: is it making a difference for students in low-income, rural Colorado elementary schools?

Introduction: The federally mandated Local Wellness Policy (LWP) was intended to promote student health in schools. This study assesses the 5-year effects of the LWP on the health practices of rural elementary schools in Colorado.

Methods: One year before and 5 years after the LWP mandate, a survey was administered to a random sample of principals, physical education (PE) teachers, and food-service managers in 45 rural, low-income elementary schools in Colorado.

In-depth interviews with state public health practitioners on the United States National Physical Activity Plan.

Background: The United States National Physical Activity Plan (NPAP; 2010), the country's first national plan for physical activity, provides strategies to increase population-level physical activity to complement the 2008 physical activity guidelines. This study examined state public health practitioner awareness, dissemination, use, challenges, and recommendations for the NPAP.

Methods: In 2011-2012, we interviewed 27 state practitioners from 25 states.