Economic Value of Parks via Human Mental Health: An Analytical Framework

Abstract

Exposure to nature yields a wide range of mental health benefits. Improvements in mental health have substantial economic value, through: reduced mental healthcare costs; improved workplace productivity; and reduced costs of antisocial behavior, both public, and private. These economic gains represent an unquantified ecosystem service attributable to conservation. Since most individual people, and hence most politicians and policy-makers, care more about the private good of individual health than the public good of ecosystem and biodiversity conservation, calculating the economic value of nature via its contributions to human mental health could prove influential in achieving conservation goals. Here, we review relevant literature, establish a framework for these calculations, and identify immediate information gaps and research priorities. Current estimates rely on assumptions, but are similar in scale to those from tourism and recreation, which do influence policy.

Mental health rescue effects of women's outdoor tourism: A role in COVID-19 recovery

“…Research in outdoor recreation has focussed on healthy individuals, rather than clinically diagnosed patients, though a few studies have compared healthy and unhealthy subjects ( Ower et al, 2018 ). Mental health benefits from activities in outdoor nature have been summarised in several recent reviews and meta-analyses ( Bratman et al, 2019 ; Buckley & Brough, 2017a ; Frumkin et al, 2017 ; Kondo et al, 2018 ; Oh et al, 2017 ; Seymour, 2016 ; Shanahan et al, 2016 ). Benefits can occur across a wide range of mental health parameters, environments ( Biedenweg et al, 2017 ; Wyles et al, 2017 ), and personality types ( Wang et al, 2017 ).…”

Nature, Eco, and Adventure Therapies for Mental Health and Chronic Disease

“…Older individuals live longer, in poor health, but children are also affected ( 24 ). Costs include treatments and healthcare, lost productivity, paid and unpaid carers, and decreased quality of life (QOL) ( 6 , 20 – 22 , 25 ). In total, these costs may be ~10% GDP for nations with aging populations and high per capita healthcare expenditure ( 6 , 20 – 22 , 25 ).…”

Analysing adventure: a leisure lifepsychle?

“…Lifestyle dissatisfaction and poor mental health in urban nations, despite high material wealth in global relative terms, impose large social and economic costs on modern societies. Including the costs of public and private antisocial behaviour, decreased workplace productivity, and paid and unpaid healthcare, these costs amount to around 10% of GDP for wealthier nations with high per capita healthcare costs (Buckley & Brough, 2017;Buckley et al, 2016).…”

“…More and more people in urban societies are finding that at least a modicum of adventure provides balance and purpose to life, and improves their health and happiness (Brymer and Schweitzer, 2013;Buckley and Brough 2017;Buckley, Westaway and Brough 2016;Yeh et al, 2016). So as wealthier societies have become more and more urbanised, and leisure more and more divided from work, adventure has become a more and more important component in human civilisations (Anon 2017).…”