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New review of evidence linking the environment and mental health

A picture of a woman running through woodland
"This review has provided a critical understanding of gaps in the knowledge base to prioritise future action. One of the promising opportunities emerging from the work is for the development of a community of practice amongst researchers, policy makers and practitioners focused on a more holistic approach to environment-mental health connections."

An Environmental Science and Mental Health Review commissioned by NERC and led by researchers at the James Hutton Institute has highlighted the potential contribution that environmental science can make to mental health research and innovation. It found a wide range of research projects that have highlighted correlations between adverse environmental factors and mental health issues. For example, a scoping review and series of workshops identified links between oil spills and post-traumatic stress disorder, aircraft noise and delayed reading ability in primary school children, and air pollution and psychotic episodes in teenagers.

At the same time, other studies have looked at the positive effects of a healthy natural environment on humans – such as how natural river catchment areas and flows are crucial for cultural and societal wellbeing in India, or how natural gardens can alleviate work-related stress.

The report concludes that a great deal of research over the years has brought environmental science and mental health studies together, but there remain many gaps in our knowledge and a need to do more.

Among the report’s specific conclusions and recommendations are:

  • Most existing studies have come from the perspective of mental health. There is a clear opportunity to integrate environmental science and mental health research more closely, to improve understanding further.
  • There has been a greater research focus on mental ill-health than on maintaining or improving good mental health and wellbeing, which would add important insights for decisions about our living environment.
  • Many environmental/wellbeing issues are complex, and there is a need for more research which involves multiple disciplines – whether bio-medical, environmental, social, economic, or psychological.
  • Establishing causality in mental health research is challenging. Finding new ways for research to work with large data sets, including knowing where they are, linking them and sharing data, could bring major benefits.
  • Longer-term studies would help us to understand the impacts of environmental issues over time - not just after an incident - as well as causal relationships.

Caroline Culshaw, NERC Head of Healthy Environment, said: “People have really valued connecting with nature during lockdowns and there are well-documented links between nature and wellbeing, but there are still knowledge gaps in our understanding, for example, what is it about the environment that provides the benefit. It is clear that more integrated cross-disciplinary research is needed if we are to make the right decisions - both for the health of the environment, and the health and wellbeing of the people who benefit from it.”

Katherine Irvine, Senior Researcher in environmental psychology and conservation behaviour at the James Hutton Institute's Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences department, who led the review, said: “The Review carried out a wide-ranging scoping exercise, looked at other systematic reviews of previous research and over 200 individual studies, and ran workshops which identified 16 case studies showing advances in academic understanding of the nexus between environmental science and mental health.

"Although there has been a plethora of work considering links between mental health and the environment much of this is piecemeal and focused on specific aspects of the environment or mental health. This review has provided a critical understanding of gaps in the knowledge base to prioritise future action. One of the promising opportunities emerging from the work is for the development of a community of practice amongst researchers, policy makers and practitioners focused on a more holistic approach to environment-mental health connections."

Visit the Valuing Nature website to read the report.

Press and media enquiries: 

Bernardo Rodriguez-Salcedo, Media Manager, James Hutton Institute, Tel: +44 (0)1224 395089 (direct line), +44 (0)344 928 5428 (switchboard) or +44 (0)7791 193918 (mobile).


Printed from /news/new-review-evidence-linking-environment-and-mental-health on 28/03/24 10:56:41 PM

The James Hutton Research Institute is the result of the merger in April 2011 of MLURI and SCRI. This merger formed a new powerhouse for research into food, land use, and climate change.