The Relationship between Nature Deprivation and Individual Wellbeing across Urban Gradients under COVID-19

Tomasso, Linda Powers; Yin, Jie; Laurent, José Guillermo Cedeño; Chen, Jarvis T.; Catalano, Paul J.; Spengler, John D.

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041511

Cited by 64 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 105 publications

(102 reference statements)

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“…Access to these amenities is unequally distributed, with poor and minority communities relatively deprived (Jennings et al 2017;Nesbitt et al 2018Nesbitt et al , 2019. Some evidence suggested that this racially disparate nature deprivation was associated with reduced well-being during the pandemic (Tomasso et al 2021). Conversely, the presence of greenspace may have had a salutary effect on racial disparities in COVID-19 infections.…”

Section: Changing Modes Of Travel?mentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

Frumkin

2021

Environ Health Perspect

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BACKGROUND: Since the dawn of cities, the built environment has both affected infectious disease transmission and evolved in response to infectious diseases. COVID-19 illustrates both dynamics. The pandemic presented an opportunity to implement health promotion and disease prevention strategies in numerous elements of the built environment. OBJECTIVES: This commentary aims to identify features of the built environment that affect the risk of COVID-19 as well as to identify elements of the pandemic response with implications for the built environment (and, therefore, for long-term public health). DISCUSSION: Built environment risk factors for COVID-19 transmission include crowding, poverty, and racism (as they manifest in housing and neighborhood features), poor indoor air circulation, and ambient air pollution. Potential long-term implications of COVID-19 for the built environment include changes in building design, increased teleworking, reconfigured streets, changing modes of travel, provision of parks and greenspace, and population shifts out of urban centers. Although it is too early to predict with confidence which of these responses may persist, identifying and monitoring them can help health professionals, architects, urban planners, and decision makers, as well as members of the public, optimize healthy built environments during and after recovery from the pandemic.

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Section: Changing Modes Of Travel?mentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

Frumkin

2021

Environ Health Perspect

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“…Similarly, no differences in nature exposure duration or frequency were identified by levels of neighborhood deprivation among survey responses collected between April and July, 2020, mostly from the UK (Robinson et al, 2021). Further, another study in four U.S. metropolitan areas found no difference in the predictive power of nature deprivation during lockdown to explain psychological wellbeing across neighborhood income levels (Tomasso et al, 2021). Also, no differences between socioeconomic groups were observed in associations between nature exposure and somatization (i.e., pain, fatigue, headaches) or psychological distress during lockdown in survey respondents living in Spain and Portugal between March andMay, 2020 (Riberio et al, 2021).…”

Section: Variations In Nature Contact Changes and Nature-health Associations By Sociodemographic Economic And Racial/ethnic Groupsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In that U.K. study, women also decreased their green space visitation frequency during lockdown compared to before the lockdown more than men, yet no differences in total green space visitation rates and durations were found between men and women. No differences were also found in associations between nature deprivation during lockdown and psychological wellbeing between men and women in the U.S. (Tomasso et al, 2021). Similarly, no differences between men and women were observed for the association between somatization or psychological distress during lockdown and nature exposure in Spain or Portugal (Riberio et al, 2021).…”

Section: Variations In Nature Contact Changes and Nature-health Associations By Sociodemographic Economic And Racial/ethnic Groupsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…After duplicate removal we identified 688 articles. Among these studies, we selected those focused on following three topics aligned with our research objectives: (i) identifying the ways nature contact has changed during lockdowns (e.g., Geng et al, 2021;Venter et al, 2020;Ugolini et al, 2020;; (ii) examining the associations between nature contact, mental health, well-being, and COVID-19 transmission/mortality rate (e.g., Ribeiro et al, 2021;Dzhambov et al, 2020;Liu, 2020;You and Pan, 2020;Russette et al, 2021); and (iii) exploring how these associations vary by sociodemographic, economic, and racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Lu et al, 2021;Burnett et al, 2021;Astell-Burt and Feng, 2021;Tomasso et al, 2021). The majority of these studies were published from samples in North America, Europe and East Asia, and mostly focused on adult populations.…”

Section: Characteristics Of Identified Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a few studies argued that many people might not have had a private garden because they live in apartment buildings, their neighborhood puts restrictions on common courtyards, have a small yard, or are of low socioeconomic status (Natural England, 2020). In these cases, indoor plants may have had the potential to balance the need for nature exposure during lockdowns (Leon et al, 2020;Sapano et al, 2021;Tomasso et al, 2021;Dzhambov et al, 2020). In addition, a few studies explored the potential impact of virtual/digital nature contact on human health while staying inside or working as frontline healthcare workers (van Houwelingen-Snippe et al, 2020;Putrino et al, 2020;Zabini et al, 2020).…”

Section: Types Of Exposurementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Nature’s contributions in coping with a pandemic in the 21st century: A narrative review of evidence during COVID-19

Labib¹,

Browning²,

Rigolon³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and wellbeing. In this narrative review, we synthesized the evidence about nature’s contributions to health and wellbeing during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that during lockdowns, people experienced multiple types of nature, including both outdoors and indoors. Frequency of visits to outdoor natural areas (i.e., public parks) depended on lockdown severity and socio-cultural contexts. Other forms of nature exposure, such as spending time in private gardens and viewing outdoor greenery from windows, may have increased. The majority of the evidence suggests nature exposure during lockdowns was associated with less depression, anxiety, stress, and more happiness and life satisfaction. Additionally, nature exposure was correlated with less physical inactivity and fewer sleep disturbances. Evidence was mixed regarding associations between nature exposure and COVID-related health outcomes, while nature visits might be associated with greater rates of COVID-19 transmission and mortality when proper social distancing measures were not maintained. Findings on whether nature exposure during lockdowns helped ameliorate health inequities by, for example, impacting the health of lower-socioeconomic populations more than their higher-socioeconomic counterparts, were mixed. Based on these findings, we argue that nature exposure may have buffered the negative mental and behavioral impacts of lockdowns during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recovery and resilience during the current and future public health crises might be improved with nature-based solutions, interventions, designs, and governance.

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Nature and well‐being: The association of nature engagement and well‐being during the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic

et al. 2023

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1. Numerous studies have shown the positive association between nature engagement and well-being. During the early phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, nature engagement changed dramatically as mental health and well-being declined across the globe.2. This study examines how psychological connection to nature and engagement with nature in various forms is associated with well-being during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Specifically, we examine which types of nature engagement (i.e. with nearby nature, through nature excursions and media-based) are more strongly associated with well-being based on measures of loneliness, rumination, pandemic emotional impact and mental health.3. We employed a cross-sectional online survey of adults (N = 3282) residing in the United States, 25% of whom report seldom spending time in nature. 4. Our findings revealed that the psychological construct of connection to nature was associated with less loneliness and greater mental health. Overall, nature engagement was a consistent predictor of well-being, but different types of activities predicted varying outcomes on our four dependent variables. Greater engagement with nearby nature during the pandemic was associated with less rumination, less pandemic emotional impact and better mental health while nature excursions (e.g. camping, backpacking) and media-based nature engagement were associated with greater loneliness, more emotional impact from the pandemic and worse mental health. In addition, nature engagement via media was associated with greater rumination. 5. Our findings suggest that promoting opportunities to increase engagement with and access to nearby nature is associated with better human well-being, especially during challenging events, and should be part of a multi-pronged approach for coping with the next public health crisis.

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The Relationship between Nature Deprivation and Individual Wellbeing across Urban Gradients under COVID-19

Cited by 64 publications

References 105 publications

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

Nature’s contributions in coping with a pandemic in the 21st century: A narrative review of evidence during COVID-19

Nature and well‐being: The association of nature engagement and well‐being during the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic

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