LB 17-152 - CANCELLED - The impact of nature exposure on mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thursday, August 10, 2023

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT

Location: ESA Exhibit Hall

Presenting Author(s)

KW

Keri B. Watson

Sewanee, University of the South, United States

Coauthor(s)

CH

Courtney Hamond Wagner

Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, United States
HB

Hilary Byerly Flint

Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming, United States
MN

Meredith Niles

Nutrition and Food Sciences
University of Vermont, Vermont, United States
TR

Taylor H. Ricketts

Professor and Director
Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont, United States

Nature provides many benefits to people, and one of these is the positive effect of nature exposure can have on mental health. The Covid-19 pandemic had overwhelming negative consequences on mental health. It also caused drastic changes in peoples’ nature exposure, with some people spending more time in nature than before the pandemic, while others lost access to nature altogether. The pandemic thus acted as a natural experiment wherein people experienced drastic changes in nature exposure for a prolonged period of time, and under high levels of stress. Using a demographically representative sample from the states of California and New York, USA in the spring of 2020, we investigate the relationship between the frequency of nature exposure, change in nature exposure, and the type of nature exposure on four different mental health outcomes: depression, anxiety, negative affect, and positive affect. We find that as hypothesized, more frequent nature exposure during the pandemic is associated with lower depression, anxiety, and negative affect and higher positive affect. We also find that a decrease in nature exposure relative to a pre-pandemic baseline is associated with poorer mental health. Surprisingly, increased time in nature is associated with the same or worse mental health than experiencing no change in nature exposure at all. Our results also show that access to “private” forms of nature - green yards, gardens, and neighborhoods, had stronger positive effects on mental health than did access to public greenspaces. Taken together, these results support a large body of evidence demonstrating that nature is important in bolstering mental health, even in real world circumstances of prolonged stress. However, our results also highlight that these mental health benefits are not equally available to all. Although many studies have demonstrated the positive effect of nature on pandemic mental health, our results indicate that for a majority of people reduced nature exposure may have exacerbated mental health stressors during the pandemic, even as it buffered against those stresses for others. Further, the forms of nature that were most beneficial to mental health were private green spaces, which by definition are not equally available to all.