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Neglect in public spaces

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Negligence of parks in Glasgow and focusing on what can be done to help with this problem.

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This particular article is an example of a briefing designed by The World Health Organisation expressing different ways to improve on the city of Glasgow.

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Putting in the time to work on parks vegetation will help bring back wildlife and improve on the greenery amongst parks. These positive influences and “super” green spaces will help aid in the mental wellbeing of civilians, bring life back to city parks, and make it a place people want to spend time in - alongside contributing to the environmental development.

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Lambeth Bee Roads - Power Point presentation by the Lambeth City Council

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Group L’s Category: Extreme Horticulture 

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Group L’s Category: Extreme Horticulture 

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Garnethill park

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community garden - the foods could be given to homeless people/ people in food-banks (maybe a good idea to help these type of people especially during the cost of living crisis in the UK)

Using it as an educational tool, as there is a school adjacent from the park, it would let the children learn about plants, what nutrients they need to produce a good yield.

A place where wildlife could live in the soil, would make a difference from the pigeons that have taken over Glasgow.

Or we can discover a new material?

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Why it happens?
City planning plays a part into it? (when the city was an industrial power they made space for tenements and factories rather than thinking about green-space)

Also, people don’t care about the little greeneries on the random street, they just look odd. Doesn’t look like they are under any sort of care, hence people who throw rubbish in those grass would surely think it’s fine. But they do have lives too, so we would like to take it in our hands and change it.

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Evidence that it helps people + the environment 

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Evidence that it helps people + the environment 

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"For example, UH projects have the potential to increase green-area coverage in cities, decreasing negative environmental phenomena such as the “heat island effect”, noise and air pollution, and improving health through reducing social isolation, sedentarism, and mental health problems"

Quoted from; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589791820300219

Research paper; Public health benefits from urban horticulture in the global north: A scoping review and framework

Found on; 17th November 2022

Authors; Catalina , Cruz-Piedrahita Caroline Howe ,Audrey de Nazelle

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Highlights urban horticulture

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Urban horticulture shows potential to improve the health of citizens in cities of The Global North.

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Urban horticulture is related to an increase in fruits and vegetable consumption, physical activity, exposure to nature, and social cohesion.

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Ecosystem services of urban horticulture resemble those of green spaces in cities.

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Local authorities can implement urban horticulture projects to promote urban sustainability.

Abstract

Urban agriculture has increased rapidly in the Global North in recent decades. However, because most research has focused on developing countries, we still lack systematic information on the benefits, barriers, costs and risks of the practice of food production in cities of the Global North. Urban horticulture (UH) is the agriculture of plants for food consumption, materials production, or decoration, developed inside city boundaries. UH has recently been proposed as a tool to improve population health and urban biodiversity. This study takes a systems approach to reviewing the literature on the impacts of UH on public health, the environment and health behaviours, using the ecosystem services (ES) concept as lens. Using a scoping review methodology, 138 papers met the search criteria and these studies were used to develop a conceptual framework summarizing and synthesing the direct and indirect pathways in which urban horticulture and public health are interconnected. The resulting "eco"systems-based framework analyses and visualises the relationship between UH and public health and provides evidence for relationships (both positive and negative) between, and pathways linking, urban horticulture and benefits for mental health, physical activity, diet, and socialisation. This study demonstrates that UH can help to improve public health in cities of the Global North and makes the case for UH as a solution to tackling multiple health and societal challenges that arise in urban populations. We provide a framework to enable local authorities and urban stakeholders to maximise the benefits from, and reduce the risks related to, the practice of UH at a systems level.

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Public health benefits from urban horticulture in the global north: A scoping review and framework

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Urban horticulture shows potential to improve the health of citizens in cities of The Global North. * Urban horticulture is related to an increase in fruits and vegetable consumption, physical activity, exposure to nature, and social cohesion. * Ecosystem services of urban horticulture resemble those of green spaces in cities.

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Explore a hand-picked collection of Pins about Co-Lab 1 on Pinterest.

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An organisation that funds projects to promote health by improving on the planets eco-systems.

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Climate Change and Health Awards

In 2018, we launched the one-off Climate Change and Health Awards for researchers who want to better understand the links between climate change and people's health.

Find out more about the grants we awarded.

Health-sensitive implementation of nationally determined contributions
Project lead: Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum World Health Organization
There is strong evidence that climate change presents severe health risks, and addressing the drivers of climate change could bring large health gains.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) reflect the self-defined efforts of countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The NDCs are renewed every five years.

The NDCs submitted in the first round (in 2020) are neither sufficient to limit warming below the global goal of 2C (aiming at 1.5C), nor to adequately strengthen resilience to climate risks. While 65% of the NDCs cite health, less than 25% include the health co-benefits of mitigation. Only 3% of proposed NDC actions connect to health, and only 50% of surveyed countries have a health adaptation strategy or plan.

This project will address the barriers that currently hinder governments in systematically considering health in NDC design and implementation. It will provide national health and development actors with evidence, analytical and capacity building tools to help them integrate health risks, and the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation, into NDCs. It will contribute to protecting and promoting health, and to a more coherent and synergistic approach to climate action, health and sustainable development.

Pathfinder Commission for Planetary Health and Prosperity
Project lead: Dr Rosemary Green London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
We propose a global commission to quantify evidence for national, regional and global actions that will be positive for health, the environment and the economy.

The commission will identify and assess policies, technologies and interventions across a range of sectors, including transport, food systems, cities, energy, industry and health systems. It will fill knowledge gaps that are impeding progress towards a healthy zero-carbon economy - such as which actions will have the largest benefits for health, the environment and prosperity, and which implementation strategies should be employed for effective scale-up.

In addition to synthesising and grading the evidence, the commission will generate a framework for action in the form of practical guidelines for governments, NGOs, civil society and the private sector. These guidelines will indicate how to prioritise the actions that need to be taken in particular contexts. It will also include a comprehensive influence strategy to be developed with partner organisations and a creative agency.

Long-term impacts of climate change on health
Project lead: Professor Elizabeth Frankenberg Duke University, UCLA and SurveyMETER
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami devastated many communities along the coastline of Aceh, Indonesia.

Shortly after the tsunami hit, the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR) project began. This was a collaboration between researchers at Duke University, UCLA and SurveyMETER (Indonesia). Over a decade, they collected longitudinal data on the health of people affected by the disaster.

In a new phase of the project, researchers are collecting data on several key biological health and nutrition markers, including measures of cholesterol, diabetes risks and inflammation. These indicators allow researchers to gain a better understanding of long-term health outcomes and precursors to various non-communicable diseases.

Health impacts of the tsunami vary with factors such as age, gender and socioeconomic status. Researchers seek to understand whether then unborn children whose mothers were exposed to a great deal of stress are particularly likely to show poor long-term health outcomes. Identifying those people most vulnerable to negative effects could be key in targeting help for these groups in future disasters.

Health impacts of a climate change adaptation strategy to address drinking-water salinity in coastal Bangladesh
Project leads: Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman, Dr Abu Mohd Naser Titu, Dr Leanne Unicomb International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Emory University, Dhaka University, University College London and Stanford University
Climate change is causing the salt concentration of drinking water in Bangladesh to rise, putting the population's health at risk. People drinking saline water have high blood pressure, an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and stroke.

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is one way to provide a sustainable source of drinking water. This collaborative project will assess whether MAR is beneficial to health, and whether it will remain effective after expected environmental changes.

It will also investigate whether government strategies for climate change and disaster management can integrate MAR.

If the results of this study are positive, MAR could be rolled out across coastal Bangladesh as well as other Asian mega-deltas.

Consequences of seasonal movements for infectious diseases in a changing climate
Project leads: Dr Jessica Metcalf Princeton University, Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Southampton
Variations in human aggregation driven by climate can affect the incidence of diseases, including outbreaks. However, the dynamics of the relationship between climate, human movement and disease is difficult to characterise and remains poorly understood.

This project is examining what human aggregation means for many infectious diseases, using seasonality as a unique probe. Seasonal population movements, which result in repeated migration patterns linked to agriculture and fisheries, provide a way to examine the dependence of movement on climate and the consequences for disease.

The project aims to quantify and model seasonal human movement patterns, their dependence on climate, and their consequences for disease. The team will amass a unique cross-disciplinary data repository incorporating climate model output, human mobility data (such as from mobile phone data records) and disease data.

Using this data, researchers will explore the potential effects of climate change on health vulnerabilities and define beneficial strategies with direct impacts on disease control and treatment. For instance, this could provide insights into where it would be most effective to distribute bednets or run vaccination programmes.

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Our Planet, Our Health grants awarded | Wellcome

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In 2018, we launched the one-off Climate Change and Health Awards for researchers who want to better understand the links between climate change and people's health. Find out more about the grants we awarded. Project lead: Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum World Health Organization There is strong evidence that climate change presents severe health risks, and addressing the drivers of climate change could bring large health gains.

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How plants promote better mental health and wellbeing

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How plants promote better mental health and wellbeing

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https://www.ukri.org/what-we-offer/iyph2020/how-plants-promote-better-mental-health-and-wellbeing/

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Research has shown that spending more time in nature has a beneficial impact on our mental health. In fact, research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has found that living with a regular view of a green space provides health benefits worth £300 per person per year.

The MARCH Network, one of UK Research and Innovation's eight mental health networks, is investigating the role places such as parks and allotments have on mental health, and includes Nature Connectedness, a project at the University of Derby looking at our psychological links to nature.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs #healthyplantshealthy minds campaign is encouraging people to share photos of their house and garden plants on Instagram and Facebook, which have been shown to help reduce stress, improve mental health and concentration.

With COVID-19 restricting the movement of people, closing gyms, entertainment and socialising spaces, spending as much time in the garden, park or allotment is looking like one of the key ways to keep mentally healthy during this pandemic. We look at the three main ways plants positively affect our mental wellbeing.

Gardening

Since lockdown began, gardens have taken on a whole new purpose - as a space for physical activity and mindfulness. One of the largest studies to date on gardens and gardening, funded by Innovate UK and National Institute for Health Research, found that people who spent time in the garden report better physical and mental health levels than those who do not. The study showed the benefits of gardening were similar to the difference in health between the wealthiest and the poorest people in the country.

Professor Alistair Griffiths, Director of Science and Collections at the Royal Horticultural Society and co-author on the paper, said: "This work adds to the increasing body of scientific evidence on the health benefits of gardens and gardening. As the current COVID crisis has demonstrated, there's an urgent need to include the provision of private gardens in the planning process to better support the UK's preventative health agenda and the wellbeing of our nation."

What about helping gardeners protect their precious spaces? A service with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), predicts the arrival of insect pests, and is helping gardeners to protect their produce and reduce chemical pesticide use. Dr Daniel Kudenko from the University of York and Dr Paul Holloway, now at University College Cork, used geographical and temporal data from the Rothamsted Insect Survey and large-scale citizen science project The Big Bug Hunt to develop a predictive model of insect migrations. Using this model, the pest prediction service alerts users of predicted outbreaks, enabling them to implement biological control measures in advance.

Xylella fastidiosa has been described by the European Commission as "one of the most dangerous plant bacteria worldwide, causing a variety of diseases, with huge economic impact for agriculture, public gardens and the environment." There is currently no cure for the disease which is known to infect more than 300 types of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. The bacterium is transmitted (vectored) by insects such as leafhoppers and froghoppers/spittlebugs that feed on the xylem, the plant tissue that transports water from roots to leaves in plants.

As part of the BRIGIT project, a consortium for enhancing UK surveillance and response to this devastating disease, the Spittlebug Survey is helping to better understand the distribution and ecology of these xylem-feeding insects so to then predict how the disease might spread if it reaches the UK.

Green neighbourhoods

Living in a greener neighbourhood has also been linked to better wellbeing, based on current data collected by Natural England's Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey, the world's largest survey collecting data on people's weekly contact with the natural world, which focused on parks and playing fields.

In response to COVID-19, Natural England has launched their #betterwithnature campaign to inspire more people to connect with nature safely during the pandemic, offering tips and activities such as planting seeds or sketching a flower.

A study in Scotland, funded by ESRC, showed that maintained recreational woodlands encourage more people outside. Figures indicated people were more than twice as likely to visit maintained woodlands more than twice a week.

Specially built parks or "pocket parks" have also shown to have a positive effect on the environment and building community spirit. An ESRC-funded project built a pocket park in Fenham in 2016, which increased the environmental value of the area with fruit trees to attract insects and bees.

Plants also significantly improve the air quality of an area or environment, which in turn impact our overall health, including mental health. The Global Centre for Clean Air Research at the University of Surrey, part-funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, has shown trees and hedges reduced pollution by diverting, diluting or capturing pollutants. They identified 12 traits for 61 tree species that have effective barriers against pollution, and typical traits include small leaves, high foliage and either evergreen or semi-evergreen varieties.

Plant nutrition

Plants, which make up 80% of our diet, are crucial for our health and wellbeing. Since the pandemic, we've already seen a 250% surge in seed and compost sales in the UK, with many embarking on the challenge of "grown your own" as much for the mind as for the belly.

The impact of plants on physical health has been well-documented, but research into mental health is slowly catching up. An ESRC-funded study looking at the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and wellbeing showed that mental well-being, in the short-term, improves and responds to both the amount and the number of times a person eats fruit and veg.

There is even new research looking into how we can extract the most nutrition from plant-based foods. Better nutrition is not only good for a healthy body, but also mental wellbeing.

The Quadram Institute, with funding from BBSRC, is looking at how plant-based food is broken down by the body. By doing this, they will be able to support the development of healthier food products. This will directly impact on people's health, for example, an increase in protein and micronutrients in crops such as pulses will be available in regions where these nutritional deficiencies exist.

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How plants promote better mental health and wellbeing

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Research has shown that spending more time in nature has a beneficial impact on our mental health. In fact, research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has found that living with a regular view of a green space provides health benefits worth £300 per person per year.

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Between people leaving spaces unkept, on the bus I saw a very untidy garden with kids bikes and other things, it might be the same that people don't really care about their public green spaces in town, Therefore its a lack of pride in their city?

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On-line Digital Image of Garnethill Park

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On-line Digital Image of Garnethill Park