Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature: integrating green/blue infrastructure and health service valuation and delivery (IWUN)

有相当多的证据表明，健康的自然环境--特别是人们居住的地方--和经常获得这种环境，可以对人民的健康和福祉作出积极贡献，而且对健康状况最差的人有最大的好处。随着社会寻找具有成本效益的方法来提高身心健康和生活质量，很明显，增加人与自然环境之间的积极互动可能是英国未来医疗保健安排的重要组成部分。然而，这一潜力尚未实现-部分原因是我们没有完全了解人们如何以及为什么与自然环境互动，以及环境的哪些方面和人们对环境的体验会带来积极的健康和福祉结果。一个地方的生物多样性是否会影响人们的健康和福祉？为什么自然环境可能对其产生最大积极影响的某些社会阶层不太可能参观自然场所？体验自然和与自然的联系起到了什么作用？获得高质量的自然环境对处于生命中特别重要阶段(最容易受到健康不良影响的阶段)的人的健康和福祉有什么作用？如果我们了解黑人、亚洲人和少数族裔社区成员、老年人、弱势城市居民和社会经济地位较低群体的成员与自然环境互动的生理、心理和社会经济原因--以及这种情况如何在他们的生活中发生变化--它将使我们能够更有效地设计和管理我们的城市空间，以产生健康和福祉，并更有效地参与到至关重要的社会部分，以获得巨大的社会和经济效益。这个项目将研究一个大城市内人与当地自然环境和他们的健康和福祉之间的互动。它的目标是：1.详细了解不同社区人们的健康和福祉如何与他们所居住的自然绿地的数量、质量和分布有关；2.调查文化、教养、社会价值观和规范在其中发挥的作用；3.探索来自不同种族和社会经济群体的人们如何与绿地互动，以及这如何影响他们与自然的联系、心理健康和福祉；4.发现人们访问的地方的生物多样性价值如何影响他们的心理健康和福祉；5.开发一种方法来评估这些见解的经济影响；6.开发有效的方法，将这些知识灌输到政治家、规划者、设计师、开发商、土地经理、公共卫生专员和其他专业人士、商业领袖以及相关的志愿和社区组织的政策、交付和投资决策中。它将：1.探索整个谢菲尔德城市自然环境与健康和福祉之间的关系--特别关注精神健康，并使用比以前研究中使用的更详细的数据集；2.探索来自不同背景的城市居民(特别是按年龄、性别、种族和精神健康服务使用情况区分)如何交流他们自己与自然接触和联系的故事和价值观；3.使用创新的智能手机应用程序记录大量人口样本与谢菲尔德自然环境的互动，及其与自然关联性和个人幸福感的关系；4.量化谢菲尔德环境不同部分的生物多样性价值，并确定这与经历这些环境的人的自然关联性和个人幸福感之间的关系；5.确定这些见解的经济、实践和政策影响，以及应用这些见解的有效方法。

There is considerable evidence that a healthy natural environment - particularly where people live - and regular access to it, can contribute positively to the health and wellbeing of the population, and that it has the most benefit on those with the highest levels of ill-health. As society looks for cost effective ways to boost mental and physical health and quality of life, it is clear that increased positive interaction between people and the natural environment could be a significant part of the UK's future health care arrangements.However, this potential is not yet being fulfilled - in part because we do not fully understand how and why people interact with the natural environment, and which aspects of the environment, and people's experience of it, lead to positive health and wellbeing outcomes. Does the biodiversity of a place affect people's health and wellbeing? Why are some sections of society, on whom natural environments could have the greatest positive impact, less likely than average to visit natural places? What part does experience of and connection to nature play? What role does access to a high quality natural environment have in the health and wellbeing of people at particularly significant stages in their lives (when they are most vulnerable to ill-health)? If we understood the physical, psychological and socio-economic reasons why members of black, asian and minority ethnic communities, the elderly, disadvantaged urban residents, and those from lower socio-economic groups (in particular) interact with the natural environment as they do - and how this changes through their lives - it would enable us to design and manage our urban spaces more effectively to generate health and wellbeing benefits, and to engage critically important sections of society more effectively, to great social and economic benefit.This project will study the interaction within one large city between people, their local natural environment and their health and wellbeing. It aims to:1. Understand at a detailed level how the health and wellbeing of the people within different neighbourhoods relates to the quantity, quality and distribution of natural greenspaces where they live;2. Investigate the role that culture, upbringing, social values and norms play in this;3. Explore how people from different ethnic and socio-economic groups interact with greenspaces and how this affects their connectedness to nature, and mental health and wellbeing;4. Discover how the biodiversity value of the places that people visit affects their mental health and wellbeing;5. Develop a way to assess the economic implications of these insights;6. Develop effective ways to feed this knowledge into the policy, delivery and investment decisions of politicians, planners, designers, developers, land managers, public health commissioners and other professionals, business leaders and relevant voluntary and community organisations.It will:1. Explore the relationship between urban natural environments and health and wellbeing across the whole of Sheffield - focusing especially on mental health and using more detailed datasets than those used in previous research;2. Explore how urban residents from diverse backgrounds (especially differentiated by age, gender, ethnicity and mental health service use) communicate their own stories and values relating to contact and connectedness with nature;3. Use an innovative smartphone App to record the interactions of a large population sample with Sheffield's natural environment, and its relationship to their nature connectedness and personal wellbeing;4. Quantify the biodiversity value of different parts of Sheffield's environment and identify the relationship between this and the nature connectedness and personal wellbeing of people experiencing them;5. Identify the economic, practical and policy implications of these insights, and effective ways of applying them.