Valuing the health benefits of nature-based recreational physical activity in England.

Physical activity (PA) reduces the risk of several non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Natural environments support recreational PA. Using data including a representative cross-sectional survey of the English population, we estimated the annual value of nature-based PA conducted in England in 2019 in terms of avoided healthcare and societal costs of disease.

The use of Enhanced Vegetation Index for assessing access to different types of green space in epidemiological studies.

Background: Exposure to green space can protect against poor health through a variety of mechanisms. However, there is heterogeneity in methodological approaches to exposure assessments which makes creating effective policy recommendations challenging.

Objective: Critically evaluate the use of a satellite-derived exposure metric, the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), for assessing access to different types of green space in epidemiological studies.

Green-blue space exposure changes and impact on individual-level well-being and mental health: a population-wide dynamic longitudinal panel study with linked survey data.

Background: Cross-sectional evidence suggests that living near green and blue spaces benefits mental health; longitudinal evidence is limited.

Objectives: To quantify the impact of changes in green and blue spaces on common mental health disorders, well-being and health service use.

Design: A retrospective, dynamic longitudinal panel study.

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.

Ambient greenness, access to local green spaces, and subsequent mental health: a 10-year longitudinal dynamic panel study of 2·3 million adults in Wales.

Background: Living in greener areas, or close to green and blue spaces (GBS; eg, parks, lakes, or beaches), is associated with better mental health, but longitudinal evidence when GBS exposures precede outcomes is less available. We aimed to analyse the effect of living in or moving to areas with more green space or better access to GBS on subsequent adult mental health over time, while explicitly considering health inequalities.

Methods: A cohort of the people in Wales, UK (≥16 years; n=2 341 591) was constructed from electronic health record data sources from Jan 1, 2008 to Oct 31, 2019, comprising 19 141 896 person-years of follow-up.

What is known about what works in community-involved decision-making relating to urban green and blue spaces? A realist review protocol.

Background: There is now a relatively well-established evidence base suggesting that greener living environments and time spent in urban green and blue spaces (UGBS) can be beneficial for human health and wellbeing. However, benefits are not universal and there remain widespread social inequalities in access to such resources and experiences, particularly along axes of class, race, ethnicity, age and disability, and in relation to efforts to increase the availability and accessibility of such spaces. These injustices often relate to distributive, procedural and recognition-based processes.

Space-for-time substitutions in climate change ecology and evolution.

In an epoch of rapid environmental change, understanding and predicting how biodiversity will respond to a changing climate is an urgent challenge. Since we seldom have sufficient long-term biological data to use the past to anticipate the future, spatial climate-biotic relationships are often used as a proxy for predicting biotic responses to climate change over time. These 'space-for-time substitutions' (SFTS) have become near ubiquitous in global change biology, but with different subfields largely developing methods in isolation.

Visiting nature is associated with lower socioeconomic inequalities in well-being in Wales.

Natural environments can promote well-being through multiple mechanisms. Many studies have investigated relationships between residential green/blue space (GBS) and well-being, fewer explore relationships with actual use of GBS. We used a nationally representative survey, the National Survey for Wales, anonymously linked with spatial GBS data to investigate associations of well-being with both residential GBS and time in nature (N = 7631).

Jamestown Canyon virus (Bunyavirales: Peribunyaviridae) vector ecology in a focus of human transmission in New Hampshire, USA.

Jamestown Canyon virus disease (JCVD) is a potentially neuroinvasive condition caused by the arbovirus Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV). Human cases of JCVD have increased in New Hampshire (NH) over the past decade, but vector surveillance is limited by funding and person power. We conducted mosquito surveillance with a focus on human JCVD cases south central NH during 2021.

GroundsWell: Community-engaged and data-informed systems transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for population health - a new initiative.

Natural environments, such as parks, woodlands and lakes, have positive impacts on health and wellbeing. Urban Green and Blue Spaces (UGBS), and the activities that take place in them, can significantly influence the health outcomes of all communities, and reduce health inequalities. Improving access and quality of UGBS needs understanding of the range of systems (e.

Environmental resistance predicts the spread of alien species.

The unabating rise in the number of species introduced outside of their native range makes predicting the spread of alien species an urgent challenge. Most predictions use models of the ecological niche of a species to identify suitable areas for invasion, but these predictions may have limited accuracy. Here, using the global alien avifauna, we demonstrate an alternative approach for predicting alien spread based on the environmental resistance of the landscape.

A call to action: Improving urban green spaces to reduce health inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19.

Health is not equally distributed across society; there are avoidable, unfair, systematic differences in health between population groups. Some of these same groups (older people, BAME communities, those with some non-communicable diseases (NCDs)) may be particularly vulnerable to risk of exposure and severe COVID-19 outcomes due to co-morbidities, structural vulnerabilities, and public-facing or health and social care jobs among other factors. Additionally, some of the restrictions designed to reduce SARS-CoV-2 spread impact specifically on these same groups by limiting their activity and access to preventive or health promotion services.

What approaches to social prescribing work, for whom, and in what circumstances? A realist review.

The use of non-medical referral, community referral or social prescribing interventions has been proposed as a cost-effective alternative to help those with long-term conditions manage their illness and improve health and well-being. However, the evidence base for social prescribing currently lags considerably behind practice. In this paper, we explore what is known about whether different methods of social prescribing referral and supported uptake do (or do not) work.

Nature-Based Interventions for Improving Health and Wellbeing: The Purpose, the People and the Outcomes.

Engagement with nature is an important part of many people's lives, and the health and wellbeing benefits of nature-based activities are becoming increasingly recognised across disciplines from city planning to medicine. Despite this, urbanisation, challenges of modern life and environmental degradation are leading to a reduction in both the quantity and the quality of nature experiences. Nature-based health interventions (NBIs) can facilitate behavioural change through a somewhat structured promotion of nature-based experiences and, in doing so, promote improved physical, mental and social health and wellbeing.

Longitudinal access and exposure to green-blue spaces and individual-level mental health and well-being: protocol for a longitudinal, population-wide record-linked natural experiment.

Introduction: Studies suggest that access and exposure to green-blue spaces (GBS) have beneficial impacts on mental health. However, the evidence base is limited with respect to longitudinal studies. The main aim of this longitudinal, population-wide, record-linked natural experiment, is to model the daily lived experience by linking GBS accessibility indices, residential GBS exposure and health data; to enable quantification of the impact of GBS on well-being and common mental health disorders, for a national population.

Supplementary search methods were more effective and offered better value than bibliographic database searching: A case study from public health and environmental enhancement.

Background: We undertook a systematic review to evaluate the health benefits of environmental enhancement and conservation activities. We were concerned that a conventional process of study identification, focusing on exhaustive searches of bibliographic databases as the primary search method, would be ineffective, offering limited value. The focus of this study is comparing study identification methods.

What approaches to social prescribing work, for whom, and in what circumstances? A protocol for a realist review.

Background: The use of non-drug, non-health-service interventions has been proposed as a cost-effective alternative to help those with long-term conditions manage their illness and improve their health and well-being. Interventions typically involve accessing activities run by the third sector or community agencies and may also be described as non-medical referral, community referral or social prescribing. To be effective, patients need to be "transferred" from the primary care setting into the community and to maintain their participation in activities.

Participation in environmental enhancement and conservation activities for health and well-being in adults: a review of quantitative and qualitative evidence.

Background: There is growing research and policy interest in the potential for using the natural environment to enhance human health and well-being. This resource may be underused as a health promotion tool to address the increasing burden of common health problems such as increased chronic diseases and mental health concerns. Outdoor environmental enhancement and conservation activities (EECA) (for instance unpaid litter picking, tree planting or path maintenance) offer opportunities for physical activity alongside greater connectedness with local environments, enhanced social connections within communities and improved self-esteem through activities that improve the locality which may, in turn, further improve well-being.

A systematic review of the health and well-being impacts of school gardening: synthesis of quantitative and qualitative evidence.

Background: School gardening programmes are increasingly popular, with suggested benefits including healthier eating and increased physical activity. Our objectives were to understand the health and well-being impacts of school gardens and the factors that help or hinder their success.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative evidence (PROSPERO CRD42014007181).

Height, body mass index, and socioeconomic status: mendelian randomisation study in UK Biobank.

Objective: To determine whether height and body mass index (BMI) have a causal role in five measures of socioeconomic status.

Design: Mendelian randomisation study to test for causal effects of differences in stature and BMI on five measures of socioeconomic status. Mendelian randomisation exploits the fact that genotypes are randomly assigned at conception and thus not confounded by non-genetic factors.

Understanding how environmental enhancement and conservation activities may benefit health and wellbeing: a systematic review.

Background: Action taken to enhance or conserve outdoor environments may benefit health and wellbeing through the process of participation but also through improving the environment. There is interest, amongst both health and environmental organisations, in using such activities as health promotion interventions. The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the health and wellbeing impacts of participation in environmental enhancement and conservation activities and to understand how these activities may be beneficial, to whom and in what circumstances or contexts.

Seeking everyday wellbeing: The coast as a therapeutic landscape.

Recent research suggests coastal environments may promote human health and wellbeing. This article explores the diverse coastal experiences sought out by residents of two towns in south west England to promote and preserve their personal wellbeing in the context of their everyday lives. It draws on the findings of an in-depth interpretive study conducted from May to November 2013 that examined the relative contribution of varied green and blue space experiences to individual wellbeing through the life course.