Advancing urban green and blue space contributions to public health

Urban green and blue spaces (UGBS) have the potential to improve public health and wellbeing, address health inequities, and provide co-benefits for the environment, economy, and society. To achieve these ambitions, researchers should engage with communities, practitioners, and policy makers in a virtuous circle of research, policy, implementation, and active citizenship using the principles of co-design, co-implementation, co-evaluation, and cotranslation. This Viewpoint provides an integrated perspective on the challenges that hinder the delivery of healthenhancing UGBS and recommendations to address them. Our recommendations include: strengthening the evidence beyond cross-sectional research designs, strengthening the evidence base on UGBS intervention approaches, evaluating the effects on diverse population groups and communities, addressing inequities in the distribution and quality of UGBS, accelerating research on blue space, providing evidence for environmental effects, incorporating co-design approaches, developing innovative modelling methods, fostering whole-system evidence, harnessing political drivers, creating collaborations for sustainable UGBS action, and advancing evidence in low-income and middle-income countries. The full potential of UGBS as public health, social, economic, and environmental assets is yet to be realised. Acting on the research and translation recommendations will aid in addressing these challenges in collaboration with research, policy, practice, and communities.

Keywords

Subject (DDC)

360 - Soziale Probleme, Sozialdienste, Versicherungen

Project

Event

Exhibition start date

Exhibition end date

Conference start date

Conference end date

Date of the last check

ISBN

ISSN

2468-2667

Language

English

Created during FHNW affiliation

Yes

Strategic action fields FHNW

Publication status

Published

Review

Peer review of the complete publication

Open access category

Gold

License

Citation

Hunter, R. F., Nieuwenhuijsen, M., Fabian, C., Murphy, N., O’Hara, K., Rappe, E., Sallis, J. F., Lambert, E. V., Duenas, O. L. S., Sugiyama, T., & Kahlmeier, S. (2023). Advancing urban green and blue space contributions to public health. The Lancet Public Health, 8(9), e735–e742. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(23)00156-1

Full item page