Reviewing our Relationship with Nature. Blog by Caitlin Hinson & Ruth Lamont

Published on 20 August 2024


Caitlin Hinson who works at Natural England
Ruth Lamont who works at Natural England

Caitlin Hinson, Senior Specialist in Natural Capital at Natural England

Ruth Lamont, Principle Officer at Natural England and ACCESS Leadership College Fellow

What the evidence tells us about nature, and human health and well-being

Evidence for the complex links between nature and health and well-being cuts-across sectors and research disciplines. There is a lot of useful evidence out there, but its breadth has made it difficult to draw together and use to inform decision making.

This was very much the experience of Natural England, a traditionally ecologically focused organisation with a growing remit around how people and wider nature relate to each other. To begin to unpick this relationship and bring the evidence together in one place, Natural England has completed the most comprehensive review to-date of this area. The review focuses on how natural environments in the UK context relate to human health and wellbeing, in both positive and negative ways.

 

The review of reviews

The project identified over 2,000 reviews that 1) report on specific exposures to nature (such as water-based recreation, pollen, gardening, climate and air pollution), and 2) look at how this relates to specific health and well-being outcomes (such as, mental health, respiratory outcomes and obesity). These reviews were screened to identify the most recent and comprehensive reviews to report on each combination of exposure and outcome.

A total of 104 reviews were included in the final report, aiming to provide an informative overview of the field, as well as a break-down of evidence for individual links between nature exposure and health outcomes.

 

Insights: the main types of exposure to nature

The review enabled us to identify four main categories of ‘nature exposure’—the ways that people and the natural environment interact—measured within the body of research. These are summarised as:

  1. General nature exposure is about being close to nature, rather than deliberate interaction with it. Looking at proximity of parks, fields or green spaces near where people live and work is a common way of looking at ‘nature exposure’ in research. This category also includes other more passive exposures, such as people’s exposure to extreme weather events, pollen or wildlife.
  2. Active Engagement with nature is all about the deliberate activities that people do outside, such as varied types of outdoor recreation, like gardening or outdoor exercise. These can be organised or alone, but also with a therapeutic intention or not.
  3. Exposure to contaminated nature captures people’s contact with pollutants while spending time outdoors. These may be in water, air or on the land.
  4. Exposure to nature improvement considers how improvements to our natural environments—such as nature recovery work, air/water quality mitigation or nature-based volunteering—can impact on their health and well-being.

Person walking in a field of wild flowers by the sea

Insights: how nature exposure relates to our health and well-being

The report summarises the strength of evidence for a range of areas, from active travel to green social prescribing. To provide a flavour of some of these insights:

  • Exposure to green spaces is good for our health, showing links with better psychological well-being, increased physical activity and markers of health linked to this. Accessible green space in more built-up areas in particular will be important for protecting health and wellbeing.
  • Exposure to nature improves the activity levels of children and young people.
  • For other age groups, good evidence exists on how active and deliberate nature activities, such as gardening and exercise outdoors, benefit mental health and wellbeing.
  • Evidence to connect positive health outcomes with water-based environments, often called blue space, is growing.
  • Contamination, pollution and toxins are negatively impacting our health and wellbeing. Pathogens in water are causing illnesses for bathers, and air pollution from transport and industry having significant negative impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular health.
  • However, it is positive to see that improvements in air quality were found to correspond with improvements in quality and length of life.

The ‘take home’?

Although some areas are well-evidenced, this review highlighted gaps in understanding that could be addressed through effective partnerships between the health and environment sectors, these include:

  • Providing clear evaluation of nature-based activities (beyond gardening and physical activity) to support its therapeutic use;
  • Getting to grips with the risk that climate change poses to health and well-being in the UK and what we can do to mitigate against this;
  • Showing through evidence—rather than assuming—that nature improvement activity such as nature recovery projects can benefit people as well as nature.

There is huge potential to take action that benefits both our health and well-being, and our natural environment. Natural England will continue to build cross-sector partnerships for nature’s recovery to achieve our vision of thriving nature for people and planet.

You can read the full report here