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Parks and Recreation Collection – Narratives

Category: Health, fitness and well-being

nature play; role of open space in mental health

The Preconditions of Well-being

Updated on date by author

Human well-being is central to the worldview of parks and leisure people, it’s a, and perhaps THE primary purpose of parks and leisure activities and facilities. So there is likely to be wide interest in a series of thought pieces being published in The Mandarin, a national online newsletter of public administration, under the aegis of the Royal Societies of Australia.

The series has its origin in a conviction by the scientist members of The Royal Society of Queensland that the knowledge held by scientists and medicos about human health and well-being is being only inadequately reflected in national public policy and there is a need for public advocacy of scientific insights to better inform policy settings in health, education, and a range of other portfolios.

Some of the columns published to date don’t overlap much with the interests of parks and leisure people (speaking generally), but some will resonate strongly with readers of this website:

  • under-resourcing of public goods
  • under-resourcing and politicisation of the public sector departments responsible for public infrastructure and services
  • timidity in tackling alcohol, drug, gambling and other industries that are threats to well-being
  • absence or weakness of forums for crossing the disciplinary and sectoral silos to bring evidence and insights from all quarters into the senior policy apparatus.

Articles 3-7 will be of particular interest to operational managers who struggle to implement good ideas: they explain that there are five major ingredients to a successful program or project, and the absence of any of the one can be fatal to success.

The Mandarin is tagging the articles and the full series can be accessed by clicking on this link.

«««««»»»»»

Most of the articles published to date have been written by one author, but the project envisages contributions from a range of people with expertise. Any parks or leisure practitioner who would like to write a column of about 1000 words on a well-being subject of their choice is warmly invited to contact The Royal Society of Queensland via their website or the secretary of PaRC via secretary AT SYMBOL parcaustralia.com.au.

 

Review Status: Pending
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MidCoast Recreational Boating Infrastructure Plan 2024 – 2035

Posted on date by author

MidCoast Recreational Boating Infrastructure Plan 2024 – 2035

 

This boating infrastructure plan is part of the MidCoast Parks and Recreation Planning Portfolio.

 

It covers more than a hundred individual boating assets, which include boat ramps, pontoons and jetties, across our coastline, rivers and lakes, many of which are sensitive ecosystems. The Plan not only focuses on the assets but also on the activities that are conducted on the waterways, and which use the facilities. Environmental protection is the main focus of the Plan.

Review Status:
Posted in Health, fitness and well-being, Infrastructure, facilities and urban environments, Natural resources and environment, Open space and recreation areas, Organised sport, Planning, policy and legislation | Leave a reply

Healthy Spaces and Places

Updated on date by author

“Healthy Spaces and Places” was a web-based national guide for planning, designing and creating sustainable communities that encourage healthy living.n regional cities, towns, villages and remote communities. The Healthy Spaces and Places material was developed over 2008-2016 and was previously hosted on a dedicated website www.healthyplaces.org.au, but this has since closed down. (It was however snapshotted by the National Library in 2011).

This resource was developed by a collaborative team comprising the Australian Local Government Association, the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Planning Institute of Australia and funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

The material has been entirely superseded by the Healthy Active by Design (HAbD) website hosted by the National Heart Foundation. From 2016 all the previous resources of HSP have been brought under the HAbD online platform. Over 2024-25 the Foundation has an exciting program to further enhance and update the HAbD resources on its website.

Review Status: Pending
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The Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition

Updated on date by author

The Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) is focused on reducing the rates of chronic disease through research excellence in nutrition and physical activity. It is hosted by Deakin University, Victoria.

“IPAN is a multi-disciplinary research institute focused on understanding – and influencing – physical activity and nutrition to improve health across the lifespan.​

“Our research spans from the lab to real world settings. We conduct metabolism, physiology, clinical and behavioural studies, and community and population-based research.​”

Visit the IPAN website

IPAN research covers four research domains, one joint department and a research centre.

Research domains

Biology of health and disease
The overarching aim of research in this domain is to characterise and understand the biological mechanisms by which exercise and nutrition impact health. Research in this domain includes healthy and clinical populations across the lifespan – from growth in the womb to ageing.

Healthy active living​
This domain focuses on real-world solutions to increase population levels of physical activity and consists of three research groups; Physical activity and sedentary behaviour from infancy to young adulthood; Built and natural environments for healthy living​; and Worker health and stress.​

Preventing and managing chronic conditions
The focus of this research is the development, implementation, evaluation and translation of lifestyle-based solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases . This includes cardio-metabolic and musculo-skeletal-related conditions, brain, cognitive and mood-related disorders, and cancer. ​

Food, nutrition and health
Unhealthy diets are the leading contributor to the global burden of disease and research in this domain includes developing and evaluating interventions and translating research into policy and practice.

Baker-Deakin Department of Lifestyle and Diabetes

A collaborative partnership between the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and PAN, the Baker-Deakin Department of Lifestyle and Diabetes has been established to advance research into one of the greatest health challenges of our time – the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes.

The Department focuses on developing evidence-based lifestyle approaches to address the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes, drawing on shared interests in physical activity, sedentary behaviour, nutrition and chronic disease management research.

The Centre for Sport Research

The Centre (CSR) is focused on influencing practice in sport to enhance the health and performance of people and organisations participating in sports. CSR researchers are experts in sport, exercise and health.

 

Review Status: Pending
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Peter Nicholls: Life Enjoyment Mentor

Updated on date by author

Peter Nicholls, of Adelaide, a long-term Trustee of the AIPR Trust Fund-Education (forerunner of PaRC), has described himself as “Australia’s People Gardener”. His inspiring life story has been summarised in his “Manifesto“, a challenge to people enslaved by an economic  worth ethic to substitute “life enjoyment” for “work” as their purpose in life.

 

Peter has made his updated Manifesto available to PaRC readers. Further details  of Peter’s vision may be obtained from his website, https://australiaspeoplegardener.com.au/.

Review Status: Pending
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Smartphones and birdlife

Updated on date by author

Smartphone technology used to assess mental health benefits of birdlife

A growing body of empirical evidence is revealing the benefits of exposure to nature for mental health, including higher-level mental well-being and lower risk of mental illness1. However, the vast majority of the works in the literature have focused on the value of regular contact with green spaces, including forests, parks, gardens and trees. While these studies have led to growing appreciation of the mental health benefits of nature in general, we know little about the specific features which are drive these benefits.

For example, the mental health benefits of everyday encounters with birdlife for mental health are poorly understood. Earlier studies have typically relied on retrospective questionnaires or artificial set-ups with little ecological validity. In the United Kingdom, there is a captivation with birds underlined by the fact that more than 1.3 million people are members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Interest in birds is not just uniquely British: in the USA more than 70 million people have been recorded as interested in bird-watching, making this one of the most popular nature-based recreational activities. Further, bird-watching societies are not a phenomenon unique to the western world but are present worldwide, including countries with very different traditions and cultures.

Despite the human fascination with birdlife, few studies have specifically examined the effect of encountering birds as part of everyday life on our mental health.

Recently new and extensive research by researchers at King’s College, London has found that seeing or hearing birds is associated with an improvement in mental well-being that can last up to eight hours. This improvement was also evident in people with a diagnosis of depression (the most common mental illness worldwide) indicating the potential role of birdlife in helping those with mental health conditions. The study used an especially developed smartphone application to collect people’s real-time reports of mental well-being alongside their reports of seeing or hearing birdsong.

The project was funded by the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London.

To overcome the limitations of existing literature, the association between seeing or hearing birds and self-reported mental well-being (a strong predictor of mental health in the general population), was surveyed using a smartphone-based application. This ‘Urban Mind’ application (https://www.urbanmind.info/) uses Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), a method which involves sampling people’s experiences in real-time and in real-world contexts. This technique allowed exploration of the relationship between the experience of seeing or hearing birds and mental well-being while minimising the risk of recall bias. The Urban Mind application also collected detailed information on the participants, allowing observers to explore how the effect of seeing or hearing birds on mental well-being depends on personal characteristics such as age, gender and having a diagnosis of mental illness.

Using the smartphone-based EMA, they carried out a ‘citizen science study’ which aimed to answer the following questions:

  1. Are encounters with birds as part of everyday life associated with higher mental well-being?
  2. Is the beneficial impact of everyday encounters with birds on mental well-being time-lasting?
  3. Does the beneficial effect of everyday encounters with birds on mental well-being differ between people with a diagnosis of depression and people without a mental health condition?

Lead author Ryan Hammoud, Research Assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College (IoPPN) London, said: “There is growing evidence on the mental health benefits of being around nature and we intuitively think that the presence of birdsong and birds would help lift our mood. However, there is little research that has actually investigated the impact of birds on mental health in real-time and in a real environment. By using the Urban Mind app we have for the first time showed the direct link between seeing or hearing birds and positive mood. We hope this evidence can demonstrate the importance of protecting and providing environments to encourage birds, not only for biodiversity but for our mental health.”

The study took place between April 2018 and October 2021, with 1,292 participants completing 26,856 assessments using the Urban Mind app, developed by King’s College London, landscape architects J&L Gibbons and arts foundation Nomad Projects. Participants were recruited worldwide (including Australia), with the majority being based in the United Kingdom, the European Union and USA. The app asked participants three times a day whether they could see or hear birds, followed by questions on mental well-being to enable researchers to establish an association between the two and to estimate how long this association lasted.

The study also collected information on existing diagnoses of mental health conditions and found hearing or seeing birdlife was associated with improvements in mental well-being in both healthy people and those with depression. Researchers showed that the links between birds and mental well-being were not explained by co-occurring environmental factors such the presence of trees, plants, or waterways.

Senior author, Andrea Mechelli, Professor of Early Intervention in Mental Health at IoPPN said: “The term ecosystem services is often used to describe the benefits of certain aspects of the natural environment on our physical and mental health. However, it can be difficult to prove these benefits scientifically. Our study provides an evidence base for creating and supporting biodiverse spaces that harbour birdlife, since this is strongly linked with our mental health. In addition, the findings support the implementation of measures to increase opportunities for people to come across birdlife, particularly for those living with mental health conditions such as depression.”

Research partner Jo Gibbons of J & L Gibbons said: “Who hasn’t tuned into the melodic complexities of the dawn chorus early on a spring morning? A multi-sensory experience that seems to enrich everyday life, whatever our mood or whereabouts. This exciting research underpins just how much the sight and sound of birdsong lifts the spirits. It captures intriguing evidence that a biodiverse environment is restorative in terms of mental wellbeing. That the sensual stimulation of birdsong, part of those daily ‘doses’ of nature, is precious and time-lasting.”

Further research on a more diverse sample is needed to allow the generalisation of these findings to the general population.

This study has potential for mental healthcare policy. Visits to habitats with a high concentration of birdlife could become part of social prescribing schemes, playing a role in preventing mental health difficulties and complementing more traditional interventions. Paramount to all of this, will be the adoption of environmental and wildlife protection policies for the preservation and enhancement of a mosaic of habitats in rural and urban settings.

The study, ‘Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals mental health benefits of birdlife’, was published in Scientific Reports and is free to access via https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20207-6

 

Review Status: Pending
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Sport knowledge – the Australian Clearinghouse

Updated on date by author

The Australian Clearinghouse for Sport is the pre-eminent information and knowledge-sharing platform for Australian sport.

The Clearinghouse brings together Australia’s leading sport and active recreation agencies, using Sport Australia as the principal information coordinator, to share news, evidence and insights about sport, human performance and physical activity. The Clearinghouse works to:

  • Identify and acquire information of relevance to the Australian sport and active recreation sectors;
  • connect people in sport and active recreation with complementary expertise;
  • inform Australian sport practitioners (such as athletes, coaches, physical educators, scientists, medical providers, researchers, administrators, students, facility managers, policy makers, volunteers, and sporting officials) about good and promising practice in sport and active recreation;
  • provide Australian governments at all levels with comprehensive and policy relevant analysis of research relating to sport and active recreation, and its value to the community; and
    Provide Clearinghouse members with high quality information on sport, physical activity and active recreation.

The Clearinghouse is a central access point for knowledge about the Australian sport sector and for communication between sportspeople and sporting organisations. It is an entity of the Australian Sports Commission, itself an agency of the Australian Government. Access its website https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/ here.

Given the existence of the Clearinghouse with its focus on ‘active’ recreation and sport, the PaRC document library and this PaRC narratives website have purposely focused on ‘passive’ recreation, open space and park management, although of course no clear distinction can be maintained.

Canadian Sport Information Resource Centre

The Canadian equivalent is an excellent source of technical knowledge about sports played in that country. Click on SIRC Resources or its French version.

Review Status: Pending
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Childhood exposure to ‘blue spaces’ and subsequent well-being

Updated on date by author

Much has been researched and published over the past two decades into the health benefits of contact with nature. But these have largely focused on green space or natural spaces. ‘Blue spaces’ also have unique sensory qualities and facilitate a distinct range of leisure activities. Of course they also pose a number of hazards, particularly for children, and this may increase parental concerns.

Even if green and blue spaces can be conceptualised as separate entities, they cannot be distinctly separated from each other. Terrestrial attributes around blue spaces, such as paths and easily accessible watersides, usually contain green vegetation and many green spaces also contain or border on water bodies such as rivers, wetlands, ponds and the coast. Blue and green space experiences are frequently bound together and childhood exposure to blue spaces is likely to be predictive of the future frequency of green space visits as well.

A new extensive study by researchers from the University of Exeter in the UK has investigated those benefits relating to days at the beach. Their report entitled “Mechanisms underlying childhood exposure to blue spaces and adult subjective well-being: An 18-country analysis” (Australia was one of those countries) was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology Volume 84 December 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-environmental-psychology/vol/84.

The researchers point out: “We know far less about the benefits of blue spaces, or the role childhood contact has in these relationships in later life”.

Their new report is based on data from the BlueHealth International Survey (BIS), a cross-sectional survey co-ordinated by the University of Exeter’s European Centre for Environment and Human Health. The analysis took in 15,000 people from 14 European countries and four non-European countries/states: Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and California.

Respondents were asked to recall their blue space experiences between the ages of 0-16 years. These included how local were these blue spaces: Were they close by to where the participant lived as a child, or were they some distance away? How often did they visit these spaces? How comfortable were their parents or guardians with their playing in these settings?

They were also asked about “more recent contact with green and blue spaces over the last four weeks, and mental health over the last two weeks”. So the assessment of a participant’s mental health was based on how they’d been feeling of late, rather than on a clinical evaluation. For many people, some of the happiest memories from childhood were those days spent at the beach, or fishing, swimming and sailing or on a river. Such family holidays where when the family was at its most relaxed.

When talking to people who grew up on or near a beach or a lake – or even on a farm – it was common to find that memories of childhood happiness are tied to those places, where they could roam freely and soak up the diverse beauties of nature. On that basis, it’s no stretch to wonder if an abundance of such memories has a positive impact on one’s mental health in adulthood.

The researchers concluded that “adults with better mental health are more likely to report having spent time playing in and around coastal and inland waters, such as rivers and lakes (also known collectively as blue spaces) as children”. The finding was replicated in each of the countries studied.

This recent evidence suggests that growing up near blue spaces is associated with a lower prevalence of a variety of mental health disorders during adulthood, even after accounting for concurrent green space exposure. These findings place exposure to blue spaces during childhood as a potentially important predictor of adult mental well-being in its own right.

Valeria Vitale, lead author and PhD candidate at Sapienza University of Rome, said: “Our findings suggest that building familiarity and confidence in and around blue spaces during childhood may stimulate an inherent joy of nature and encourage people to seek out recreational nature experiences, with beneficial consequences for adult mental health.”

Dr Leanne Martin, co-author and a postdoctoral research associate at Exeter, said: “Water settings can be dangerous for children, and parents are right to be cautious. This research suggests though that supporting children to feel comfortable in these settings and developing skills such as swimming at an early age can have previously unrecognised life-long benefits.”

This is probably the most significant finding in the study. The main point is: teach your children to swim, and give them practical guidance on how to stay safe at the beach or on the river, which can be tricky. On that basis, if young beach-goers do grow up with greater resilience – a more than reasonable suggestion, if not a conclusion in this study – it’s because they enjoyed their parents’ confidence.

The study raises questions about how outdoorsy are today’s children? Dr Mathew White, co-author and Senior Scientist at the University of Vienna, said: “The current study is adding to our growing awareness of the need for urban planners and local bodies responsible for managing our green and blue spaces to provide safe, accessible access to natural settings for the healthy mental and physical development of our children.”

Review Status: Pending
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