Nurses can use nature-based health promotion concepts to work with citizens, health practitioners and policymakers to explore and optimize reciprocal, health promoting relationships among humans and the natural environment. To the extent that nurses integrate nature-based health promotion into their research efforts, we can expect to contribute meaningfully to both environmental and human health in communities across the globe.

The use of photo research methods is influenced by underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions. Variant assumptions about reality and knowledge converge to conceive a relationship between the knower and what can be known. These assumptions provide the rationale for decided ways of engaging participants in the process of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we examine how perspectives of realism and relativism may shape epistemological understandings and influence type and use of photo methods in qualitative research. Based on deliberations about underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions and related strengths and challenges of photo methods, we assert that photo methods contribute to the development of knowledge that both matters to participants and informs nursing practice.

While there is considerable research on environmental contamination and degradation, there is equally credible evidence on the healthful qualities of the environment. Being in and caring for nature can be health promoting for individuals, families, communities, ecosystems and the planet. In this paper, we use a conceptual model for nature-based health promotion and a socio-ecological model of health promotion to guide the scope, organization and critique of relevant literature on nature-based health promotion in several fields and generate recommendations for practice, policy and research. We conclude that participatory community-based research is needed to build local knowledge and create systemic change in practice and policy to support healthy living for people and the planet.