Urban natural environments as nature-based solutions for improved public health–A systematic review of reviews

Abstract

Increasing urbanisation, changing disease scenarios, and current predictions of climate change impacts require innovative strategies for providing healthy and sustainable cities, now and in the future. The recently coined concept, Nature-based solutions(NBS), is one such strategy referring to actions that are inspired by, supported by, or copied from nature, designed to address a range of environmental challenges. The objective with this article is to evaluate the evidence on public health benefits of exposure to natural environments and explore how this knowledge could be framed within the NBS concept. We conducted a systematic review of reviews following established methodology, including keyword search in several databases, predefined inclusion criteria, and a data extraction in accordance with the PICOS structure. We reviewed literature on associations between public health and natural environments in relation to pathways sociobehavioural/cultural ecosystem services (e.g. stress and physical activity) and regulating ecosystem services (e.g. heat reduction) or defined health outcomes (e.g. cardiovascular mortality). The results show that there is strong evidence for improved affect as well as on heat reduction from urban natural environments. These conditions may mediate the effect seen on cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related mortality by exposure to natural environments. By also reviewing existing literature on NBS and health, we phrase the results within the NBS context, providing guidelines on how public health and well-being could be integrated into implementation of NBS for resilient and liveable urban landscapes and health in a changing climate.

Keywords

Mature-based solutions; Green spaces; Systematic review; Evidence; Public health; Urbanisation; Heat stress; CVD-mortality; Positive affect; Mental health

Published in

Environmental Research
2017, Volume: 158, pages: 373-384

SLU Authors

• Ode Sang, Åsa

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLUsystematic
Nature experiences and health


Sustainable Development Goals

SDG3 Good health and well-being
SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities
SDG13 Climate action


UKÄ Subject classification

Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
Landscape Architecture


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2017.05.040

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/84586