Examining the Relationship Between Level of Participation in Community Gardens and their Multiple Functions

Booth, Jaime M.; Chapman, Darren; Ohmer, Mary L.; Wei, Kai

doi:10.1080/10705422.2017.1413024

Cited by 30 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Consistent with recent academic discourse [9, 43, 70] this study has shown that while some level of interest in gardening may be universal among community gardeners motivations for participation can be highly diverse. These motivations (grounded in political, social, economic, environmental and ancestral determinants) are the focus of the present study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“You feel like you’re part of something bigger”: exploring motivations for community garden participation in Melbourne, Australia

Kingsley¹,

Foenander²,

Bailey³

2019

BMC Public Health

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Background Increased global urbanisation has led to public health challenges. Community gardens are identified as a mechanism for addressing socio-ecological determinants of health. This study aims to explore motives for joining community gardens, and the extent to which participation can be facilitated given barriers and enablers to community gardening. Such a study fills a gap in the public health literature, particularly in the Australian context. Methods This paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with 23 participants from 6 community gardens across Melbourne. Applying phenomenological, epistemological and reflexive methodologies and thematic analysis of the data, this study provides a snapshot of drivers of community garden participation. Results Results were categorised into six enabling themes to participation. These themes revolved around (i) family history, childhood and passion for gardening; (ii) productive gardening, sustainability and growing fresh produce in nature; (iii) building social and community connections; (iv) community and civic action; (v) stress relief; and (vi) building identity, pride and purpose. Time costs incurred, garden governance and vandalism of garden spaces were among the barriers to community garden participation. Conclusion Although an interest in the act of gardening itself may be universally present among community gardeners to varying degrees, the findings of this study suggest that motivations for participation are diverse and span a range of ancestral, social, environmental, and political domains. This study contributes exploratory insights on community garden motivations and sustained involvement across multiple urban sites in Melbourne (Australia). This study recommends extending this work by undertaking future quantitative research that can move from local case studies to a national guidelines on how to engage more people in urban agriculture activities like community gardening. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7108-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“You feel like you’re part of something bigger”: exploring motivations for community garden participation in Melbourne, Australia

Kingsley¹,

Foenander²,

Bailey³

2019

BMC Public Health

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“…A study undertaken in urban Manchester, UK, by Middling et al (2011) found that community gardening participation offered a sense of value, of achievement, ownership, and control, enhancing physical and mental health. More generally, better mental health was reported in a study of those who participated in community gardening at occasional and regular levels (Booth et al 2018). Within the context of the rapid urbanisation in South Africa, a nationally representative study conducted by Tomita et al (2017) found that living in green environments was associated with lower incidents of depression.…”

Section: Mental Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…According to research undertaken by Mitchell and Popham (2008), populations residing in the greenest areas of England experienced lower rates of mortality from all causes, and mortality from circulatory disease the lowest levels of health inequality related to income deprivation, compared with populations living in the least green areas of England. In terms of nutrition, research undertaken by Booth et al (2018) revealed that those who participated in community gardening occasionally reported an increase in vegetable consumption. Food access and nutrition were also benefits identified by Wakefield et al (2004) and Kingsley, Townsend, and Henderson-Wilson (2009).…”

Section: Physical Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connections in the garden: opportunities for wellbeing

Bailey

Kingsley

2020

Local Environment

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This study aimed to gain an insight into the ways in which community and allotment gardening may enhance wellbeing for people and place, within urban Melbourne, Australia. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 participants representing six community/allotment gardens. The findings suggest that community and allotment gardening enhance people's wellbeing on a personal level mentally and physically, through social connectedness and community, and finally through connecting with the natural environment through the gardens themselves. These findings contribute to existing literature exploring community and allotment gardening predominantly based in North America and Europe by offering an exploration of an Australian context. Theoretically, these findings provide support for conceptualisations which acknowledge the interconnectedness and reciprocity of the wellbeing of people and place. Practically, these findings support the call for local government to ensure continuing access to land for facilitating community and allotment gardening.

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“…Lastly, in previous studies, health outcomes were mostly collected by declarative questionnaires, which are subject to desirability and memory bias [47]. In particular, frequency of fruit and vegetable intake was mainly estimated based on short food frequency questionnaire [11][12][13][14][15], which validity is moderate [48]. The measure of household food and beverage purchasing behaviour through the collection of food receipts and records offer a more objective approach to estimate dietary behaviours at the household level [49].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pathways through which community gardens could amplify individual health include intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental processes, such as self-efficacy, attitudes, motivation, social support, neighbourhood attachment or aesthetic [10]. Yet, while several studies have shown a positive association between community gardening and fruit and vegetable consumption [11][12][13][14][15], inconclusive results were found for BMI [15][16][17][18], physical activity [12,15], social health [12,14,15,19,20] and mental well-being [12,15]. The lack of conclusive evidence regarding differences in health related behaviors and health status between gardeners and non-gardeners is partly due to methodological limitations of existing studies including the use of cross-sectional designs, convenience samples, small sample sizes, and selfreported measurements of health outcomes [10,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving lifestyles sustainability through community gardening: results and lessons learnt from the JArDinS quasi-experimental study

et al. 2020

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Background Despite an increasing number of studies highlighting the health benefits of community gardening, the literature is limited by cross-sectional designs. The “JArDinS” quasi-experimental study aimed to assess the impact of community garden participation on the adoption of more sustainable lifestyles among French adults. Methods Individuals entering a community garden in Montpellier (France) in 2018 (n = 66) were compared with pairwise matched individuals with no experience in community gardening (n = 66). Nutritional quality, environmental impact and cost of monthly household food supplies, level of physical activity measured by accelerometers, as well as mental and social well-being, sensitivity to food waste, and connection with nature were evaluated at baseline (t0) and 12 months later (t1) to explore sustainability of lifestyles in social/health, environmental and economic dimensions. Linear mixed models were used to determine the independent effect of community gardening on investigated lifestyles components. In-depth interviews were conducted at t1 with 15 gardeners to better understand changes that may have occurred in gardeners’ lives during the first year of gardening. Results At t0, gardeners had lower education level, lower BMI and their household reported lower percentage of meals consumed outside of the home compared to non-gardeners (p < 0.05). Participating in the community garden had no significant impact, in spite of sufficient statistical power, on fruit and vegetables supplies (main outcome), nor on physical activity parameters, nor on others of the social/health, environmental and economic lifestyles components investigated. Qualitative interviews suggested the existence of pre-established health and environmental consciousness in some gardeners and revealed several barriers to the participation such as lack of time, lack of gardening knowledge, physical difficulty of gardening, health problems and conflicts with other gardeners. Conclusions The health benefits of community gardening previously reported by cross-sectional studies might be confounded by selection bias. The JArDinS study highlights the need to identify solutions to overcome barriers related to community garden participation when designing relevant public health interventions for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles. Trial registration The study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03694782. Date of registration: 3rd October 2018, retrospectively registered.

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Examining the Relationship Between Level of Participation in Community Gardens and their Multiple Functions

Cited by 30 publications

References 40 publications

“You feel like you’re part of something bigger”: exploring motivations for community garden participation in Melbourne, Australia

“You feel like you’re part of something bigger”: exploring motivations for community garden participation in Melbourne, Australia

Connections in the garden: opportunities for wellbeing

Improving lifestyles sustainability through community gardening: results and lessons learnt from the JArDinS quasi-experimental study

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