The articles in the database below represent a curated selection from our NHA (full) members and Executive Committee. Rather than being a comprehensive database, like what you would find on a mainstream database, this is a limited and curated list of articles gathered by our member. To be included, these peer-reviewed articles and resources must meet specific criteria, ensuring a foundation of quality. Articles included cover a diverse array of study types—experiments, qualitative research, and meta-analyses—all exploring the intricate relationship between nature and well-being. Priority is accorded to works addressing DEIJ matters or fostering consensus on vital topics. If you would like to submit an article to be featured in the database, please email manager@naturehealthalliance.org.
Authors:Laura Park Figueroa, Gail A. Poskey, Katherine K. Rose and Noralyn Davel Pickens |
| Occupational Therapy in Health Care | Latest Articles: 1-22
The purpose of this qualitative constructivist grounded theory study was to develop a model to explain potential mechanisms of change in the nature-based pediatric occupational therapy process, based on analysis of the perspectives of occupational therapy practitioners currently engaging in nature-based practice with children.
Authors:Eli Kindervaag, Åshild Lappegard Hauge, Maren Østvold Lindheim and Svein Åge Kjøs Johnsen |
| Studies in Health Technology and Informatics | Volume 319: Effects of Design on Health and Wellbeing: 322 - 338
This study explores how children experience two different locations at Oslo University Hospital in terms of their architectural design and emotional potential. Overall, the children prefer architectural spaces with direct contact to nature or design that mimics natural environments, in addition to being exciting, friendly, and intimate.
Authors:Ugoji Nwanaji-Enwerem, John E. McGeary and Diana Grigsby |
| Frontiers in Public Health | Volume 12
Greenspace is a critical feature of a healthy built environment. Exposure to greenspace fosters improved wellness and health among living organisms. This paper introduces the Health: Epigenetics, Greenspace, and Stress (HEGS) conceptual model which seeks to provide greater understanding of these processes and to identify key gaps in the field regarding the epigenetic influences underlying how greenspace exposure impacts stress and health.
Author:Maren Østvold Lindheim |
| The Routledge International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis | Actual Favorite Places
How do we help seriously and chronically ill children and adolescents find hope and courage to get through illness and treatment? How do we greet them? What surroundings and activities do we offer them? And how may these greetings, surroundings, and activities facilitate a belief in their own capacity to help themselves? The Outdoor Care Retreat is a cabin bordering the hospital ground created to meet the needs of admitted patients and their families.
Authors:Jose Rafols and Amy Wagenfeld |
| The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy | Volume 12, Issue 1: Winter 2024: 1-4
Large-scale commercial farmers and small scale “hobby” farmers engage in growing crops for subsistence and survival for themselves, their families, communities, and beyond. We suggest there may be a collective physical, emotional, and spiritual draw to farming that is interwoven with occupational engagement. With an increasing interest in community practice as well as environmental and social sustainability, occupational therapy’s role in supporting the farming community is important to consider.
Authors:Michelle Marvier, Peter Kareiva, Desiree Felix, Brian J. Ferrante and Morgan B. Billington |
| Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) | Volume 120, Number 44 (October 31, 2023): e2304126120
Concern about humanity’s detachment from nature has spawned a global push to increase the availability of green spaces within cities.
Author:Jennifer D. Roberts |
| American Journal of Health Promotion | OnlineFirst: 08901171231210071
The conflict and discord between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois regarding their premise and approach to racial uplift for Black Americans have been very well documented.
This study compares the experience of therapy in the Outdoor Care Retreat (OCR)—an architect-designed cabin in a natural setting behind the Oslo University Hospital in Norway—with therapy in a traditional hospital setting.
Authors:Cat Hartwell, Juliette M. Randazza, Gregory N. Bratman, David P. Eisenman, Blake Ellis, Eli Goodsell, Nicole A. Errett and Chaja Levy |
| PLOS Climate | PLOS Climate: e0000096
A trauma-informed approach to disaster recovery recognizes the potential impacts of trauma, promotes resilience to protect against retraumatization, and can support catering the needs of disaster survivors in affected communities.
Authors:Marnie F. Hazlehurst, Kathleen L. Wolf, Cary Simmons, Carolina Nieto, Mary Kathleen Steiner, Kimberly A. Garrett, Anna V. Faino, Mònica Ubalde López, María López-Toribio and Pooja Tandon |
| International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity | Volume 20 (2023)
The schoolyard environment provides key opportunities to promote physical activity and socioemotional development for children. Schoolyards can also serve as a community park resource outside of school hours.
Authors:Sara LoTemplio, Joanna E. Bettmann, Emily E. Scott and Ellison Blumenthal |
| Current Environmental Health Reports | Volume 10, Issue 3
Given the global burden of mental health issues, new solutions are needed to promote mental health. Nature exposure represents a promising option to promote mental health, but the mechanisms are poorly understood.
Author:Jennifer D. Roberts |
| Journal of Physical Activity and Health | Volume 20, Issue 11: 994-997
Picture a 2-mile-long, 200-foot-wide parkway bordered by rows of Maple and Elm trees with a bridleway down the middle that connects to a 350-acre park northward and a 56-acre park southward.
Authors:Lewis R. Elliott, Tytti Pasanen, Mathew P. White, Benedict W. Wheeler, James Grellier, Marta Cirach, Gregory N. Bratman, Matilda A. van den Bosch, Anne Roiko, Ann Ojala, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen and Lora E. Fleming |
| Environment International | Volume 178 (August 2023): 108077
The role of neighbourhood nature in promoting good health is increasingly recognised in policy and practice, but consistent evidence for the underlying mechanisms is lacking.
Authors:Carly E. Gray, Peter H. Kahn Jr., Joshua J. Lawler, Pooja Tandon, Gregory N. Bratman, Sara P. Perrins, Yian Lin and Frances Boyens |
| Land | Land: Volume 12, Issue 7 (July 2023): 1303
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic rendered daily life overwhelmingly difficult for many children. Given the compelling evidence for the physical and mental health benefits of interaction with nature, might it be the case that time spent interacting with nature buffered the negative effects of the pandemic for children?
Authors:Courtney Suess, Jay E. Maddock, Marco Palma, Omar Youssef and Gerard Kyle |
| Tourism Management | Volume 100: 104797
This study applied a Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) framework and Extended Parallel Process Model to explore respondents’ emotional and behavioral responses to video treatments that messaged varied outcomes for coral reef health and pro-environmental behavioral adaption.
Authors:Tytti Pasanen, Mathew P. White, Lewis R. Elliott, Matilda A. van den Bosch, Gregory N. Bratman, Ann Ojala, Kalevi Korpela and Lora E. Fleming |
| Environmental Research | Volume 232: 116324
Rates of living alone, especially in more urbanised areas, are increasing across many industrialised countries, with associated increases in feelings of loneliness and poorer mental health.
Authors:Devon Jecmen and Sara LoTemplio |
| Ecopsychology | Ahead of Print
The positive effects of natural environments on mental health have been observed and studied for decades. Specifically, psychology research from across the world has suggested that nature can reduce depression symptomology, although there is uncertainty about the mechanisms behind this relationship.
Authors:Jennifer D. Roberts, Shadi Omidvar Tehrani and Gregory N. Bratman |
| Global Culture and Sport Series | Sport and Physical Culture in Global Pandemic Times: 213-240
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed not only the true value of nature and open public spaces, but it reified the presence and persistence of racism in and throughout American institutions.
Authors:Monika M. Derrien, Lee K. Cerveny, Gregory N. Bratman, Chaja Levy, Paulo Frank, Naomi Serio and Dale J. Blahna |
| Society & Natural Resources | Volume 36, Issue 8: 947-969
This article conceptualizes homelessness on public lands within a social-ecological systems framework, exploring dynamics in public natural areas in the Seattle metropolitan area (USA), a system with a compact urban-to-wildland gradient.