Hosts: Prof Andrew Church and Prof Neil Ravenscroft, School of Environment and Technology, UoB

This meeting concludes the year long Outdoors and Health Network, funded by the ESRC and MRC. The network will meet as a group for the last time under the current funding to reflect on the work that they have been doing together over the last 12 months and developing ideas they would like to take forward in the future. Guests from the policy and practice world will give feedback on the outcomes of this project and will offer guidance on priorities for the future. The participants will explore how public agencies and other organisations can work together with academics combining different funding sources to gather evidence to underpin future policies related to the environment and human health.

I saw this in this week’s SDRN mailing. This is really interesting and relates closely with recent discussions of the OHN members.

SDRN Mailing: Monday 16th November 2009
View the HTML version online:
http://www.sd-research.org.uk/post.php?p=1124

DUTCH EVIDENCE OF A LINK BETWEEN GREEN SPACES AND HEALTH.
In a new study that assessed how GP-classified illnesses relate to green spaces in their patients’ living environment, researchers in the Netherlands have found more evidence that links green spaces to better health, and better mental health in particular. The study was undertaken by Dr Jolanda Maas from the EMGO Institute at VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam and colleagues, and was published as an Online First paper on 15th October in the ‘Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health’. The researchers used health indicators from general practitioner (GP) assessments to investigate suggestions that living near green spaces is linked to better health. The researchers examined data on illnesses recorded by 195 GPs in practices throughout the Netherlands. The illnesses recorded by the GPs were classified using the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC), allowing the researchers to examine 24 different diseases in seven different categories. The researchers also used a database where, by inserting postal codes, they could find out the percentage of green space within a one and three kilometer radius of a household. They then used multilevel logistic regression to find which clusters of diseases most strongly linked to how much green space was nearby. When they did the analyses they first controlled for demographic and socio-economic characteristics to minimize any potential effect they may have had on the results, and then looked at what effect they did have. The results showed that: there was a positive link between lower disease prevalence and more green space; the annual prevalence rate of 15 of the 24 disease clusters was lower in environments that had more green space in a 1 km radius; the strongest link was for anxiety disorder and depression; the link was stronger for children and for people with a lower socio-economic status; and, the link was strongest in slightly urban areas and not apparent in very strongly urban areas. More… (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/167561.php).

Dr Sarah-Anne Munoz, a co-investigator in the Outdoors and Health Network recently published a literature review on the children and outdoors. The review was supported by the Forestry Commission, Countryside Recreation Network and the Outdoor Health Forum. Sarah-Anne is currently carrying out research at the Centre for Rural Health UHI.

Childhood has long been associated in our collective imagination with images of the ‘rural’ and the ‘countryside’ because adult conceptualisations of the child as ‘innocent’ are connected with nature. Many children’s books, programmes and films incorporate these notions - involving ‘natural’ spaces, animal characters or visions of rural childhood. Societal fears have impacted on this vision of childhood - with concern over crime and children’s safety in public spaces linked with a decreasing amount of time spent by children in the outdoors. Recent research has started to examine the links between use of the outdoors, access to greenspace and health, and policy-makers have also begun to look at promoting the use of outdoors as a means for increasing public health. Children have been identified as one of the key groups that could gain health benefits from use of the outdoors - but also one that requires evidence-based policy directed towards their needs. This review therefore takes an in-depth look at the current themes within health, outdoors and children’s research and highlights how these relate to understanding the links between children’s use of outdoor spaces and health outcomes. It also highlights where there are research gaps and how these might be addressed. More… http://www.countrysiderecreation.org.uk/Children%20Outdoors.pdf

I saw this in the SDRN mailing this week and thought it looked interesting:

NEW BOOK – ‘MAKING THE LINKS: GREENSPACE FOR A MORE SUCCESSFUL AND SUSTAINABLE SCOTLAND’.
‘Making the Links’ blends case studies from across urban Scotland with international research to demonstrate how greenspace contributes to the Scottish Government’s five strategic objectives and creates healthier, safer and stronger, wealthier and fairer, smarter and greener communities.  The book also sets out the actions that are needed by a range of partners to make greenspace deliver these benefits and signposts readers to a range of useful tools and resources, as well as highlighting examples of good practice from across the country. More… (www.greenspacescotland.org.uk/makingthelinks).

Exceprt from the SDRN Mailing: Monday 18th May 2009
Read the HTML version online: http://www.sd-research.org.uk/post.php?p=1005

So after all these months of planning, the Outdoors and Health Network members finally met for the first time on Tuesday. The day started with an introduction from the Principle Investigator, Professor Stephen Tinsley over coffee and pastries. Then the fun started…

Participants had already begun to question the significance of the badges on the table with numbers and letters on. Several of them asked me if picking a certain letter would have bad consequences for them later in the day. Sarah-Anne put them all out of their misery by explaining the reason for the badges and what would be happening next. Each person had two minutes with each of the other participants in which to introduce themselves and discuss their research area and their interest in the OHN project. I was manning the stop-watch. Every two minutes the bell would ring signalling to participants that time was up and it was time to move on. This is where the difficulties started with some people having more to say than could fit into a two minute slot. After a bit of gentle cajoling everybody did get round the room successfully (and on schedule I am proud to say!). Each person was given a booklet with pictures and contact details of the other members. They also had room to write a few notes about each person after each speed dating round as a bit of an aide memoire.

The feedback from this session was positive. With 20 people in the room all from different backgrounds it really gave the network members an insight of who they would be working with over the next year and introduced people with similar interests.

The rest of the day focused on getting organised for the rest of the activities and discussion of the upcoming VC Roundtable sessions and the pilot project work. Lunchtime also providede an opportunity for a quick whizz round the Zoo. All in all a good day.

The Outdoors and Health Network officially started on April 1st. The first couple of weeks have been spent setting up this web space and organising the kick-off meeting. The kick-off meeting is being held at Edinburgh Zoo next week. Network members are travelling from the length and breadth of the country to meet each other face-to-face for the first time. It will be nice to be able to put names to faces after so many months of planning this project.

The whole point of the project is to bring together researchers from different backgrounds who wouldn’t ‘traditionally’ be working together. It is more usual for researchers to stick to working with reaserchers from a similar background to themselves. We want to mix it up a bit and get geographers working with doctors, psychologists working with landscape architects and health care and biological sceintists working with environmental scientists. This is easier said than done as all these disciplines of research have different philosophies, methods and languages. So over the next year we are going to try as many ways as we can think of to bring together 19 researchers and a number of public agency advisers to help them work together effectively.

At the kick-off meeting as an ice-breaker we are going to start the day off with ‘Speed researcher dating’. This doesn’t mean we are creating a lonely hearts club for researchers; the session gives each network member 2 minutes to speak to each of the other partners to find out a bit about each other and where their research interests lie. Members will be given an OHN members’ directory to make notes in and to exchange contact details with each other. The objective is to break down the barriers right at the beginning so that people get to know each other which will make collaboration and knowledge exchange much easier at a later stage .

The rest of the meeting will be spent discussing the activities of the year ahead and getting organised for upcoming video conferences, researcher buddying, workshops and pilot projects. I have to say I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone and getting things off the ground.

I’ll report back how we get on at the Zoo next week.