Advancing GReenCare in Europe: an integrated multi-scalar approach for the Expansion of Nature-based therapies to improve Mental health Equity

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GreenME aims to identify ways in which effective nature-based therapy and a broader green care framework can be scaled-up to improve adult mental health and wellbeing equity while contributing to multiple socio-ecological co-benefits. To that end, over 4 years, GreenME’s approach is to diagnose, to increase scientific evidence on the mental health and wellbeing benefits of green care and to empower green care actors. GreenME will increase the use of nature-based therapy and its integration within a multi-scalar green care framework to ultimately promote just climate resilient and sustainable healthy communities. GreenME understands green care as a three-scale continuum from nature-in-everyday-life (e.g. the existence of green and blue infrastructure for viewing and walks) to nature-based health promotion (the promotion of active interaction with nature such as gardening and conservation) to nature-based therapy (the provision of treatment for individual patients). We will use a transdisciplinary and mixed-methods approach to identify opportunities, barriers, causal pathways and patterns of (in)equitable distribution of mental health and wellbeing benefits from green care in study countries. We will then cocreate solutions and guidelines including a EU framework and country-specific schemes for bolstering green care along with an identified community of green care actors, and design a training program for nature-based therapy providers informed by empirical evidence. The evidence generated will offer replicable partnership models and guidelines to design impactful cross-sectorial green care systems, with national healthcare systems and local governments amongst the beneficiaries, leading to a higher uptake of nature-based therapy and a general reframing of the green infrastructure functionality.