Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose
Open accessAbstract
Nature within cities will have a central role in helping address key global public health challenges associated with urbanization. However, there is almost no guidance on how much or how frequently people need to engage with nature, and what types or characteristics of nature need to be incorporated in cities for the best health outcomes. Here we use a nature dose framework to examine the associations between the duration, frequency and intensity of exposure to nature and health in an urban population. We show that people who made long visits to green spaces had lower rates of depression and high blood pressure, and those who visited more frequently had greater social cohesion. Higher levels of physical activity were linked to both duration and frequency of green space visits. A dose-response analysis for depression and high blood pressure suggest that visits to outdoor green spaces of 30 minutes or more during the course of a week could reduce the population prevalence of these illnesses by up to 7% and 9% respectively. Given that the societal costs of depression alone in Australia are estimated at AUD$12.6 billion per annum, savings to public health budgets across all health outcomes could be immense.
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Affected populations may suffer from the repercussions that are tied to the decreased nature contact that is associated with WFS, through a deprivation of the opportunity to experience the anxiety and rumination reduction, social cohesion, and increases in positive affect that nature contact provides.
“Additionally, affected populations may suffer from the repercussions that are tied to the decreased nature contact that is associated with WFS, through a deprivation of the opportunity to experience the anxiety and rumination reduction [26–28], social cohesion [29, 30], and increases in positive affect [31–33] that nature contact provides.”
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“Additionally, affected populations may suffer from the repercussions that are tied to the decreased nature contact that is associated with WFS, through a deprivation of the opportunity to experience the anxiety and rumination reduction [26–28], social cohesion [29, 30], and increases in positive affect [31–33] that na…”
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- Authors
- Shanahan, D. F., Bush, R., Gaston, K. J., Lin, B. B., Dean, J., Barber, E., & Fuller, R. A.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Shanahan, Danielle F.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2016-06-23
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 28551-28551
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4917833
- OpenAlex
- W2474879463
- Cited by
- 809
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 97 · 2025: 89 · 2024: 121 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 98 · 2021: 104 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 55 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 10
- FWCI
- 32.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (acceptedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, Australian Research Council
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J015237/1)
- Australian Research Council (DP120102857)
- Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, Queensland Government
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Urban Green Space and Health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Urban Arborization and Environmental Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
- Keywords
- nature exposure, urban green space, dose-response relationship, depression, hypertension, social cohesion, physical activity, urbanization, mental health, cardiovascular health
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Cities, Depression, Environment, Female, Humans, Hypertension, Male, Middle Aged, Public Health, Urban Population, Urbanization, Exercise
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