Home gardens can be more important than other urban green infrastructure for mental well-being during COVID-19 pandemics

Marques, Piatã Santana; Silva, Andrey Santos; Quaresma, Yane; Manna, Luisa Resende; Neto, Newton de Magalhães; Mazzoni, Rosana

doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2021.127268

Cited by 51 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…This may have been caused by the inability to access the shared green space(s) at their apartment or home complexes to avoid neighbor interactions and found no solace with indoor plants because they had none, meaning they lost all access to vegetation. This finding supports the discoveries that interaction with nature on a small scale (such as plant pots indoors) reduces stress levels or aids in mitigating the increase in stress symptoms ( Hunter et al, 2019 ; Lehberger et al, 2021 ; Marques et al, 2021 ; Spano et al, 2021 ). The overall relative difference of stress conditions between people who had indoor plants was a 0.8 % relative increase from before lockdown to during lockdown, while people who had private green space and lost all contact with nature increased 1.23 % of stress conditions, demonstrating that it’s difficult to replace outdoor green space interaction.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Urban green spaces and stress during COVID-19 lockdown: A case study for the city of Madrid

Maury-Mora

Gómez-Villarino

Varela-Martínez

2022

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

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Due to the unexpected emergence of COVID-19, different cities improvised responses to prevent the virus from spreading and infecting the population. Madrid, capital of Spain and one of the most affected cities in Europe, confined everyone home and closed most public and private spaces, including public parks. The whole situation was surely to be responsible for stress-levels to peak. We developed an online survey to better understand the relationship between people and Urban Green Spaces prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the new bond that may have emerged from this interruption. We recruited participants, without gender or age preference, excluding underage children and teenagers, using a combination of convenience sample and a snowball approach. A total of 132 responses were logged. The study was limited to mental health inferences, specifically related to stress and its most frequent manifestations among the urban population. These indicators included physical, mood or behavioral changes and were studied on those participants who had access to UGS before and during confinement. Among the most important findings, we confirmed that when people are confronted with stressful situations, indoor plant interaction is not a substitute for different outdoor green experiences; those who interacted with green spaces in a daily manner managed stress levels better than people who didn’t (but their effects might lose strength over time); and turning to green spaces for comfort during stressful times when you don’t usually do so helps overcome difficult situations. This article contributes to the growing study of green spaces as a means towards improved mental well-being in urban areas.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Urban green spaces and stress during COVID-19 lockdown: A case study for the city of Madrid

Maury-Mora

Gómez-Villarino

Varela-Martínez

2022

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

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“… Sia et al (2020) reported that participants showed reduced anxiety after engagement in a 24-session gardening or therapeutic horticulture programme, thereby suggesting that the activity contributed towards emotional regulation, which could in turn increase mental resilience. Likewise, during the current pandemic, gardening was shown to be associated with lower psychopathological distress ( Theodorou et al, 2021 ), and home gardens could in fact, be more effective than public parks and green views in reducing mental distress ( Marques et al, 2021 ). A study in Scotland also showed that higher frequency of garden usage during the pandemic lockdown was associated with better self-rated physical health, emotional and mental health, sleep quality in older adults ( Corley et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of gardening on mental resilience in times of stress: A case study during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore

Sia

Yok

Meng

et al. 2022

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

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To curb the spread of Covid-19, Singapore, like other cities, had to impose movement restriction and social distancing measures that may affect the well-being of its residents. In this paper, we assessed the potential benefits of gardening on the mental well-being of Singapore residents, based on the concept of mental resilience. We hypothesized that gardening activities promote mental resilience. A survey was administered on 8,786 participants of a “Gardening with Edibles” programme, measuring their mental resilience status, engagement in gardening activities and socio-demographic information. The mental resilience scores of participants who engaged in weekly gardening were compared with the scores derived from another survey conducted during the pandemic on an online community comprising demographically representative respondents with an interest on Covid-19 related community care. The results showed that the mental resilience of those who gardened was statistically significantly higher than the online community. Within the gardening group, those with more than one hour of weekly gardening time had significantly lower scores in in their total mental resilience, and five out of seven resilience factors, “emotional regulation”, “relationship”, “confidence”, “positive thinking” and “spirituality”, compared to those with more weekly gardening time, showing that the efficacy of the mediating effects may peak at a weekly gardening time of between one to four hours. Home gardening may be an effective way for people living in densely populated cities to interact with nature and build mental resilience during the pandemic.

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“…These settings facilitated contact with nature while adhering to stay-at-home orders (e.g., lockdowns). For example, a recent study in Brazil showed that having a home garden was the most important predictor of mental health, while visiting urban parks was deemed less relevant (Marques et al, 2021). Thus, especially during pandemic times, researchers should be concerned with the types of nature exposure and access to nature at home.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Environments, Psychosocial Health, and Health Behaviors in a Crisis – A Scoping Review of the Literature in the COVID-19 Context

Nigg¹

2021

Preprint

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The COVID-19 outbreak has led to major restrictions globally, affecting people’s psychosocial health and their health behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this scoping review was to summarize the available research regarding the nature-health-association in the COVID-19 context. Keywords related to natural environments and COVID-19 were combined to conduct a systematic online search in six major databases. Eligibility criteria were a) published since 2020 with data collected in the COVID-19 context b) peer-reviewed, c) original empirical data collected on human participants, d) investigated the association between natural environments and psychosocial health or health behavior, and e) English, German, or Scandinavian language. Out of 8,568 articles being obtained, we identified 82 relevant articles representing 80 unique studies. Most studies focused on adults in the general population and were predominantly conducted in the USA and Europe. Overall, the findings tentatively indicate that nature mitigates the impact of COVID-19 on psychological health and physical activity. Through thematic analysis of the extracted data, three primary themes were identified: 1) type of nature assessed, 2) psychosocial health and health behaviors investigated, and 3) heterogeneity in the nature-health relationship. Research gaps in the COVID-19 context were identified regarding I) nature characteristics that promote psychosocial health and health behaviors, II) investigations of digital and virtual nature, III) psychological constructs relating to mental health promotion, IV) health behaviors other than physical activity, V) underlying mechanisms regarding heterogeneity in the nature-health relationship based on human, nature, and geographic characteristics, and VI) research focusing on vulnerable groups. Overall, natural environments demonstrate considerable potential in buffering the impact of stressful events on a population level on mental health. However, future research is warranted to fill the mentioned research gaps and to examine the long-term effects of nature exposure during COVID-19.

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Home gardens can be more important than other urban green infrastructure for mental well-being during COVID-19 pandemics

Cited by 51 publications

References 43 publications

Urban green spaces and stress during COVID-19 lockdown: A case study for the city of Madrid

Urban green spaces and stress during COVID-19 lockdown: A case study for the city of Madrid

The impact of gardening on mental resilience in times of stress: A case study during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore

Natural Environments, Psychosocial Health, and Health Behaviors in a Crisis – A Scoping Review of the Literature in the COVID-19 Context

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