This short policy summary is part of a series setting out the major changes that are needed to improve mental health. It draws upon Mental Health Foundation research and analysis which can be found in the 'further reading' section.
Contents
Access to nature is vital to protect the nation's mental health
Our relationship with nature can be a critical factor in supporting good mental health. Research evidence shows the importance of ‘nature connectedness’ - how we relate to and experience nature. A strong connection with nature means feeling a close relationship or an emotional attachment to our natural surroundings.[1],[2] Nature-connectedness is internationally accepted as a way of measuring how close a person’s relationship with nature is and has formed the basis of scientific studies. Importantly, this relationship can be improved for the benefit of people’s mental health.[3]
Noticing nature is a critical element of this. Activities involving the senses can help to develop our connection with the natural world, as can those that give us feelings of compassion, perceiving beauty or finding meaning in nature.[4] Examples include listening intently to birdsong, touching the bark of trees, smelling flowers or feeling the soil between our fingers whilst working in the garden.
However, these benefits are not evenly distributed across society. Inequalities in socio-economic status can combine with the inequalities of experience and access to nature that relate to race, disability, age, and gender. This can vary between inner-city, suburban and rural areas.
For example, people in the most affluent 20% of wards in England have five times the number of parks and amount of general green space available to them, compared to the 10% most deprived wards.[5] The People in the Outdoors Monitor for Northern Ireland (POMNI) report found that 8% of the population never spent leisure time outdoors. The population groups less likely to take regular visits include unemployed people, people with a long-term illness or disability, and older age groups. Women were also less likely than men to visit at least once a week.[6]
To help maintain population wellbeing and resilience we need a society and a design ethos that facilitates regular, sustained engagement with nature in more biodiverse spaces for everyone. There is an intrinsic link between nature’s wellbeing and our own: better mental wellbeing for all should also be central to environment policies affecting the natural world.
Nature and mental health: the evidence
The mental health benefits of nature
People with high levels of ‘nature-connectedness’ are often happier in life, feel their lives are more worthwhile and have lower levels of depression and anxiety.[7],[8] The evidence shows that, rather than focusing on people visiting natural and sometimes remote spaces, we should focus on how people can tune in and connect with ‘everyday’ nature close to home through simple activities. Research has shown that during the pandemic more people reported noticing and engaging more with everyday nature,[9] and that these changes in their relationship with nature contributed to people’s wellbeing - particularly in feelings of life being worthwhile.[10]
Exposure to nature can generate positive emotions and balance our moods, resulting in better resilience.[11] Some evidence suggests that variety within nature (or biodiversity) is important for maximising its mental health benefits. Biodiversity through bird-species richness, followed by plant-species richness, habitat diversity and butterfly-richness are all related to improved wellbeing,[12] increased positive affect (mood) and lower levels of anxiety.[13] Urban nature can also improve mental wellbeing, for example flowering plants, water, urban wildlife and trees,[14] and urban nature that is abundant and biodiverse can be a valid substitute for wild nature.[15]
Other data tell us that a ‘serene’ landscape (a place of calm or silence; often a forest with different varieties of trees, or near water) has a positive impact on our mental health,[16] and large areas covered by vegetation and bird varieties are linked to lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress.[17]
Greater cleanliness in urban green spaces has been linked to lower rates of depression, suggesting that cleanliness may be more important than green space size and overall quality. Examples of good quality green spaces include: the presence of signage; provision of facilities such as bins, seats and toilets; maintenance of paths; safety; planting and plant management.[18]
Green care interventions such as social and therapeutic horticulture, care farming and environmental conservation are linked to reductions in depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. People involved in such interventions have a greatly increased level of social contact and inclusion, as well as a sense of belonging and personal achievement, all of which are good for mental health.[19]
Adolescents (aged 11-15 years) who perceive connection with nature as important have been found to have better psychological wellbeing than adolescents who do not.[20],[21] For older children, education outside the classroom has been found to promote social wellbeing, particularly for pupils of low socio-economic status and when concentrated into fewer, longer sessions.[22]
There are associations between greenery in residential care settings and some aspects of residents’ mental wellbeing (for example, quality of life and depression). Garden use has shown the strongest associations, but the mere presence of a garden and indoor/outdoor plants is beneficial.[23] Patients in healthcare settings who benefited from a view of nature through a window reported improvements in their physical and mental health during their residential stay.[24]
Inequities in access to and experiences of green spaces
During the first COVID-19 lockdown one in eight households (12%) in Great Britain had no access to a private or shared garden, rising to more than one in five in London (21%). In England, Black people were nearly four times as likely as White people to have no access to outdoor space at home, whether it be a private or shared garden, a patio or a balcony (37% compared with 10%).
Around three in four Northern Ireland residents agreed that their local green spaces were of a high enough standard to want to spend time there (76%), but around a quarter did not think that this was the case. Again, the data highlights inequalities, with satisfaction with local green spaces and paths and trails being lowest among women, unemployed people, disabled people, and residents of rural areas (living in rural areas cannot be assumed to give automatic access to high quality, accessible green space).[26]
Urban parks can be less accessible to some groups including people in deprived communities, women, and LGBTQI+ people. Reasons include: distance to parks, lack of a pleasant walking experience, an insufficient number of parks in the neighbourhood, the lack of cultural and/or shared activities, safety concerns, and insufficient leisure time. Sometimes being close to parks and green spaces may be offset by the quality, diversity, and size of the green spaces or by socio-personal characteristics including age, income, safety, and cultural concerns.[27]
Pathways to nature-connectedness
Research has identified five ‘pathways to nature connectedness’ that activate people’s connection with nature, through:
- the senses
- emotion;
- appreciating beauty;
- exploring and celebrating the meaning nature brings to life,
- compassionately taking action to help and protect the natural world.
This knowledge of the five ways we can have a closer relationship with nature can help us make design choices about outdoor spaces and develop programmes to help support our mental health.[28]
Supporting people's mental health through nature: core principles
- Policy should shift from measuring the amount of time people spend in nature to focus on the five ways through which it is possible to improve people’s connectedness to nature (see section above).
- Well-designed or adapted green spaces should be a free, universal resource that benefit people from all backgrounds. Natural spaces must be accessible to all and ensure the inclusion of people whose access to and use of such spaces is reduced because of social, economic and health inequalities.
- Policies should facilitate everyone’s connection with nature where they live - in urban, suburban and rural environments – and in the places they regularly spend their time, including their neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools and health and care settings.
- The planning system and urban design must improve the visibility and availability of nature in every local area.
- People’s ability to connect with high-quality nature for the benefit of their mental health should be central to policies affecting the natural environment.
- It is important to protect the natural environment and restore biodiversity, to benefit both the natural world and people’s mental health.
Increasing people's connectedness with nature: recommendations for national and local government
National and local government must aim to increase people’s connectedness with nature, as follows:
All policies affecting mental health and nature must promote nature-connectedness. Success should be assessed by people’s connection with nature, not by measuring the time spent in nature or the number of visits to nature.
The UK government and devolved administrations, must set ambitious interim and outcome targets to halt the decline of species and habitats in the UK by 2030 in line with its commitment as a member of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People to halt global biodiversity loss by 2030. Delivery plans should prioritise biodiversity gain in deprived areas to bring the wellbeing benefit of nature to the communities that need it most. These plans should foster efforts at devolved levels and build on devolved administrations’ current strategies including Scotland’s Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 and Wales’ Nature Recovery Action Plan.
Relevant government departments should jointly adopt a ‘nature for everyone’ approach, with a clear pathway to equitable access to nature across the UK. This should include:
- making equal access to thriving natural spaces a key measure of success across relevant government initiatives, particularly those aimed at reducing inequalities.
- setting legal duties, through legislation, for developers and public bodies to provide equal access to nature-rich green and blue spaces for everyone.
- providing funding for locally accessible nature-rich spaces.
Access to nature should be guaranteed by using ‘Universal Design’ principlesi for parks and playgrounds to make them accessible to the widest range of people, inclusive of all disabilities, access needs, and ages. Local authorities should ensure good lighting and park patrols and work with local community groups and the police to ensure that public green spaces can be enjoyed by everyone, free from fear of harassment, sexual harassment, violence and discrimination.
[i] Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. See Centre for Excellence in Universal Design.
The National Planning Policy Framework in England should go beyond “conserving and enhancing” the existing natural environment to building new, visible nature into all development plans for the explicit purpose of supporting population mental health and wellbeing.
Local authorities should bring together public health experts, planners, local nature partnerships, and other partners to ensure that local planning and policy-making all works towards the common goal of developing the natural environment, urban or otherwise, to support people’s connection with nature. Planners and urban designers should increase the visibility and salience of nature in local environments, including places of pause or rest, such as bus stops. This includes the planning of hospital buildings and residential care settings.
National governments should take a ‘proportionately universal’ approach ii to connecting children with nature, balancing universal approaches with more targeted interventions to benefit children who have less access to nature in the places they live.
The Department for Education in England and devolved education authorities should review the amount and type of green space available in secondary schools and develop a plan for building up nature in schools whose environment currently lacks natural spaces.
To address the ‘teenage dip’ in interest in and connection with nature[30], nature should be part of the learning process, and classes should include outdoor activities that support the learning of curriculum subjects. School estates should prioritise and protect wild areas and green areas for such purposes, and all new schools should be planned with nature in mind. The UK and Northern Ireland-specific Eco-Schools programmes provide useful guidelines on fostering environmental awareness in schools.
[ii] In a proportionately universal approach, actions must be universal, but with a scale and intensity that is proportionate to the level of disadvantage, known as ‘proportionate universalism’ – see fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report-pdf.pdf (instituteofhealthequity.org).
Regional and local governments should address barriers to the widespread adoption of green social prescribing programmes by:
- focusing on local neighbourhoods and local priorities creating local forums to facilitate communication among social prescribers, nature-based activity providers, and local residents
- supporting the green social prescribing ‘Ecosystem’ by co-producing a broad range of nature-based activity, so that people have multiple options for initial and sustained engagement.
- commissioning with a focus on diversity, inclusion and accessibility: providing targeted funding and support for diverse groups to ensure that the green social prescribing offer is culturally and linguistically appropriate to residents, and that access needs can be met.[31]
Further reading
How connecting with nature benefits our mental health
Mental health and nature policy briefing for England
Supporting and expanding green social prescribing to address mental health inequalities in London
Eco-Schools: Seven Steps
Eco Schools Northern Ireland: Resources
Wildlife and Countryside Link: Nature for Everyone campaign
[1] Richardson, Miles, Passmore, H.-A., Lumber, R., Thomas, R., & Hunt, A. (2021). Moments, not minutes: The nature-wellbeing relationship. International Journal of Wellbeing, 11(1), 8–33. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v11i1.1267
[2] Richardson, Miles, Hallam, J., & Lumber, R. (2015). One thousand good things in nature: Aspects of nearby nature associated with improved connection to nature. Environmental Values, 24(5), 603–619.
[3] Professor Miles Richardson on Nature-connectedness for a new relationship with nature in: Mental Health Foundation (2021). Nature: How connecting with nature benefits our mental health , pp 14-15.
[4] Bratman, G. N., Anderson, C. B., Berman, M. G., Cochran, B., de Vries, S., Flanders, J., Folke, C., Frumkin, H., Gross, J. J., Hartig, T., Kahn, P. H., Kuo, M., Lawler, J. J., Levin, P. S., Lindahl, T., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Mitchell, R., Ouyang, Z., Roe, J., Daily, G. C. (2019). Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. Science Advances, 5(7).
[5] National Outdoors for All. Natural solutions for tackling health inequalities [Internet]. Report. 2014 Oct [cited 2023 Oct 21]. Available from: Natural Solutions to Tackling Health Inequalities - IHE (instituteofhealthequity.org)
[6] The People in the Outdoors Monitor for Northern Ireland (POMNI) (March 2022) https://www.outdoorrecreationni.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/POMNI-March-2022-Report.pdf
[7] Capaldi A., C. A., Dopko L., R. L., & Zelenski, J. M. (2014). The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(AUG). Available from: https://doi. org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00976
[8] Richardson, Miles, Passmore, H.-A., Lumber, R., Thomas, R., & Hunt, A. (2021). Moments, not minutes: The nature-wellbeing relationship. International Journal of Wellbeing, 11(1), 8–33. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v11i1.1267
[10] Richardson M, Hamlin I. (July 2021) Nature Engagement for Human and Nature’s Wellbeing during the Corona Pandemic. Journal of Public Mental Health 20(2):83-93 .
[11] Richardson, Miles, McEwan, K., Maratos, F., & Sheffield, D. (2016). Joy and Calm: How an Evolutionary Functional Model of Affect Regulation Informs Positive Emotions in Nature. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2(4), 308–320.
[12] Aerts, R., Honnay, O., & Van Nieuwenhuyse, A. (2018). Biodiversity and human health: Mechanisms and evidence of the positive health effects of diversity in nature and green spaces. British Medical Bulletin, 127(1), 5–22. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/ldy021
[13] Wolf, L. J., Zu Ermgassen, S., Balmford, A., White, M., & Weinstein, N. (2017). Is variety the spice of life? An experimental investigation into the effects of species richness on self-reported mental well-being. PLoS ONE, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0170225
[14] McEwan, K., Ferguson, F. J., Richardson, M., & Cameron, R. (2020). The good things in urban nature: A thematic framework for optimising urban planning for nature connectedness. Landscape and Urban Planning, 194, 103687. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.103687
[15] Menardo E, Brondino M, Hall R, Pasini M. Restorativeness in Natural and Urban Environments: A Meta-Analysis. Psychol Rep [Internet]. 2019 Apr 6 [cited 2023 Oct 21];124(2):417–37. Available from: Restorativeness in Natural and Urban Environments: A Meta-Analysis - PubMed (nih.gov)
[16] van den Bosch, M. A., Östergren, P. O., Grahn, P., Skärbäck, E., & Währborg, P. (2015). Moving to serene nature may prevent poor mental health— results from a Swedish longitudinal cohort study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(7), 7974–7989. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph120707974
[17] Cox, D. T. C., Shanahan, D. F., Hudson, H. L., Plummer, K. E., Siriwardena, G. M., Fuller, R. A., Anderson, K., Hancock, S., & Gaston, K. J. (2017). Doses of neighborhood nature: The benefits for mental health of living with nature. In BioScience (Vol. 67, Issue 2, pp. 147–155). Oxford University Press. https://doi. org/10.1093/biosci/biw173
[18] Mears, M., Brindley, P., Jorgensen, A., & Maheswaran, R. (2020). Population-level linkages between urban greenspace and health inequality: The case for using multiple indicators of neighbourhood greenspace. Health and Place, 62 (December 2019), 102284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. healthplace.2020.102284
[19] Bragg, R., Atkins, G. (2016). A review of nature-based interventions for mental health care. Natural England Commissioned Reports, Number204. Available at: A review of nature-based interventions for mental health care - NECR204 (naturalengland.org.uk)
[20] Capaldi A., C. A., Dopko L., R. L., & Zelenski, J. M. (2014). The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(AUG). Available from: https://doi. org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00976
[21] Martin, L., White, M. P., Hunt, A., Richardson, M., Pahl, S., & Burt, J. (2020). Nature contact, nature connectedness and associations with health, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 68(February 2019), 101389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101389
[22] Bølling, M., Niclasen, J., Bentsen, P., & Nielsen, G. (2019). Association of Education Outside the Classroom and Pupils’ Psychosocial Well-Being: Results From a School Year Implementation. Journal of School Health, 89(3), 210–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12730
[23] Carver, A., Lorenzon, A., Veitch, J., Macleod, A., & Sugiyama, T. (2020). Is greenery associated with mental health among residents of aged care facilities? A systematic search and narrative review: Aging & Mental Health: Vol 24, No 1, 1-7
[24] Raanaas, R, Patil, GG, Hartig, T. (2012). Health benefits of a view of nature through the window: a quasi-experimental study of patients in a residential rehabilitation center. Clin Rehabil. Jan;26(1):21-32. doi: 10.1177/0269215511412800. Epub 2011 Aug 19
[25] ONS (14 May, 2020) One in eight British households has no garden - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
[26] The People in the Outdoors Monitor for Northern Ireland (POMNI) (March 2022) https://www.outdoorrecreationni.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/POMNI-March-2022-Report.pdf
[27] Wang, D., Brown, G., & Liu, Y. (2015). The physical and nonphysical factors that influence perceived access to urban parks. Landscape and Urban Planning, 133, 53–66 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.09.007
[28] See Professor Miles Richardson on Nature-connectedness for a new relationship with nature in: Mental Health Foundation (2021). Nature: How connecting with nature benefits our mental health , pp 14-15.
[29] Wildlife and Countryside Link ( February 21, 2022) “New campaign calls for a ‘legal right to local nature’ in Levelling Up reforms” .
[30] Richardson, Miles, Hunt, A., Hinds, J., Bragg, R., Fido, D., Petronzi, D., Barbett, L., Clitherow, T., & White, M. (2019). A measure of nature connectedness for children and adults: Validation, performance, and insights. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(12), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU11123250.
[31] Mental Health Foundation supported by Mayor of London (Plimpton, B.) (2023). Supporting and expanding green social prescribing to address mental health inequalities in London