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Recent research conducted by King’s College London has unveiled a significant correlation between the diversity of natural features in urban environments and improvements in mental wellbeing. The study, published in Scientific Reports and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Wellcome, utilized the smartphone application Urban Mind to gather real-time reports on mental wellbeing and natural diversity from almost 2000 participants.
The findings suggest that environments boasting a variety of natural features, including trees, birds, plants, and waterways, are linked to more substantial enhancements in mental wellbeing compared to areas with limited natural diversity. Moreover, the benefits of exposure to diverse natural settings were observed to persist for up to eight hours.
Lead author of the study, Ryan Hammoud, a Research Assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, highlighted the significance of the research: “Our results highlight that by protecting and promoting natural diversity, we can maximize the benefits of nature for mental wellbeing.”
The study, which spanned from April 2018 to September 2023, involved 1,998 participants who completed over 41,000 assessments. Participants were asked to provide information about their surroundings and answer questions regarding their mental health three times daily over a two-week period. The diversity of natural features was determined based on the presence of trees, plants, birds, and water in the participants’ surroundings.
Data collection was facilitated through the Urban Mind app, a collaborative effort between King’s College London, landscape architects J&L Gibbons, and arts foundation Nomad Projects. The project, funded by a Wellcome Climate Impacts Award, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London, aims to explore the relationship between urban environments and mental wellbeing.
Senior author Andrea Mechelli, Professor of Early Intervention in Mental Health at the IoPPN, emphasized the broader implications of the findings: “Our results suggest that biodiversity is critical not only for the health of our natural environments but also for the mental wellbeing of the people who live in these environments.”
The research underscores the importance of incorporating natural diversity into urban planning and design, advocating for policies and practices that support rich biodiversity to promote both environmental sustainability and public mental health.
The study, titled ‘Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals an incremental association between natural diversity and mental wellbeing,’ is available in Scientific Reports.
