A Dose of Nature: an Interdisciplinary Study of Green Prescriptions

A green prescription is a prescribed nature‐based health intervention designed for individuals with a defined need (or to complement orthodox medical treatments). Common examples of green prescribing activities include: therapeutic horticulture, biodiversity conservation volunteering, care farming, wild crafts and nature walks. Green prescriptions are typically provided for a set length of time (e.g. 12 weeks) but can be open ended. As a green prescribing activity, therapeutic horticulture has several potential benefits including physical and mental health improvements, facilitating social co‐mingling, educational and reward‐based e.g. harvesting natural produce. It has already proven successful as a green prescribing activity in projects such as SAGE Greenfingers (sagesheffield.org.uk), which was established following a community needs assessment commissioned by Pitsmoor surgery in Sheffield. This kind of green prescription provides natural environmental features, social context and meaningful activities ‐ three important interacting phenomena in nature‐based interventions. By integrating other nature‐based activities such as simply noticing the local wildlife, this project also aims to open pathways (via senses, compassion, emotion meaning and beauty) to nature connectedness ‐ one's emotional relationship with the natural world. The novel situational element of this project (i.e. hosted in GP surgery premises) aims to maximise accessibility and minimise travel for the patients, and to minimise multi‐stakeholder logistics. Furthermore, several policy statements‐‐informed by empirical evidence‐‐were recently published by the IWUN research project (www.iwun.uk). Amongst many other recommendations, these call for GP practices to enhance the biodiversity in their premises. Importantly, the question of how GP practices can provide their own greenspaces to improve the mental health of their patients is also raised. Re‐designing the outdoor spaces surrounding GP practices and/or integrating new nature‐based features and activities within these spaces could help to enhance patient (and staff) wellbeing. Creating pocket gardens (small multifunctional gardens typically installed in the pockets of empty urban spaces) and biodiverse spaces for green prescribing activities is one potential route, and an evaluation of this concept forms the basis of the research project. There is also a severe lack of randomised controlled trial experiments in green prescribing research ‐ further strengthening the rationale for the chosen experimental approach.