Suchergebnisse

Des études sont menées depuis plus d'une décennie en Finlande sur le rôle bénéfique joué par la forêt pour la santé et le bien-être humains et ces bienfaits sont de plus en plus reconnus au sein de la société finlandaise. Des recherches ont été menées à l'échelle nationale sur les liens qui peuvent exister entre l'utilisation de la nature et l'accès à celle-ci d'une part, et la santé d'autre part, à l'aide de différentes méthodologies comme les enquêtes de population, les expériences de terrain et en combinant les données générées par des systèmes d'information géographique (SIG) décrivant la disponibilité des espaces naturels avec des données sur l'usage fait de ces zones et l'état de santé des gens. Cet article propose un récapitulatif des résultats des recherches pluridisciplinaires menées en Finlande. Parmi les domaines les plus étudiés figurent les effets reconstituants de ces espaces naturels évalués par différentes mesures psychologiques. Ces études montrent que les forêts et les autres espaces naturels sont importants pour réduire le stress et aident à récupérer après le travail. De plus, des expériences de terrain ont confirmé que la promenade en forêt a des effets bénéfiques, à la fois psychologiques et physiologiques, sur la santé humaine. Ces effets peuvent s'expliquer par la dissipation du stress psychologique, aidée par une moindre pollution atmosphérique et une plus faible exposition au bruit lors de ces sorties. De plus, des études portant sur les effets à long terme d'une exposition à la nature indiquent que l'activité physique joue un rôle de médiation vis-à-vis des bénéfices perçus en matière de santé, surtout chez les habitants des zones suburbaines. Des travaux récents ont porté sur les débats concernant la science et les politiques nationales et comment mettre en œuvre ces connaissances tirées de la recherche dans différents secteurs, notamment la santé publique, l'aménagement du territoire et la gestion des forêts. Ce travail a abouti à une proposition pour la création d'un programme national dénommé La nature pour la santé et le bien-être en Finlande comportant un plan d'actions et un programme de recherche pluridisciplinaire. Ainsi, les connaissances acquises par la recherche sont à l'origine d'une série d'expériences pratiques et de projets pilotes qui sont brièvement évoqués dans cet article. ; The role of forests in enhancing human health and well-being has been studied in Finland for more than a decade, and these benefits are increasingly recognized by the Finnish society. The national research has stu-died the associations of use and availability of nature with health using different research methods such as population surveys, on-site field experiments, and combining GIS-based data describing the provision of nature areas with use of the areas and health status of people. This article sums up research results from multidisciplinary research work in Finland. One of the main study areas has been restorative effects of nature areas using various psychological measures. These studies demonstrate that forests and other nature areas are important in reducing stress and add recovery from work. Moreover, field experiments have confirmed that visiting forests have beneficial psychological and physiological effects on human health. These effects can be explained by psychological stress relief with contribution from reduced air pollution and noise exposure during the visits. In addition, studies looking at long-term effects of nature exposure suggest that physical activity has a mediating role in perceived health benefits, particularly among suburban residents. Recent efforts include national policy-science discussions on how the research knowledge can be implemented within various sectors such as public health and land-use planning and forest management. This work has resulted a sug-gestion for a national program called Nature for Health and Well-Being in Finland consisting of an action plan and a multidisciplinary research program. More comprehensive research knowledge has contributed to and triggered series of practical experiments and pilots that are briefly discussed in the article.

Varied categorisations of residential distance to bluespace in population health studies make comparisons difficult. Using survey data from eighteen countries, we modelled relationships between residential distance to blue spaces (coasts, lakes, and rivers), and self-reported recreational visits to these environments at least weekly, with penalised regression splines. We observed exponential declines in visit probability with increasing distance to all three environments and demonstrated the utility of derived categorisations. These categories may be broadly applicable in future research where the assumed underlying mechanism between residential distance to a blue space and a health outcome is direct recreational contact. ; This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 666773.

Living near, recreating in, and feeling psychologically connected to, the natural world are all associated with better mental health, but many exposure-related questions remain. Using data from an 18-country survey (n = 16,307) we explored associations between multiple measures of mental health (positive well-being, mental distress, depression/anxiety medication use) and: (a) exposures (residential/recreational visits) to different natural settings (green/inland-blue/coastal-blue spaces); and (b) nature connectedness, across season and country. People who lived in greener/coastal neighbourhoods reported higher positive well-being, but this association largely disappeared when recreational visits were controlled for. Frequency of recreational visits to green, inland-blue, and coastal-blue spaces in the last 4 weeks were all positively associated with positive well-being and negatively associated with mental distress. Associations with green space visits were relatively consistent across seasons and countries but associations with blue space visits showed greater heterogeneity. Nature connectedness was also positively associated with positive well-being and negatively associated with mental distress and was, along with green space visits, associated with a lower likelihood of using medication for depression. By contrast inland-blue space visits were associated with a greater likelihood of using anxiety medication. Results highlight the benefits of multi-exposure, multi-response, multi-country studies in exploring complexity in nature-health associations. ; This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 666773 (BlueHealth). Data collection in California was supported by the Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University. Data collection in Canada was supported by the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. Data collection in Finland was supported by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). Data collection ...