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The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 15251

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Gregory Bratman

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Guest Editor

School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Interests: built; natural; social; virtual; human health and well-being; physical and mental health; quality of life

Dr. Jennifer D. Roberts

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Kinesiology, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Interests: physical activity; built environment; health equity; public health

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our environments (built, natural, social, and virtual) are conceivably the most significant and influencial aspect of human health and well-being. Environments impact every facet of our lives, from where we are born, live, work, and play to how these built, natural, social, and virtual spaces affect our actions and behaviors, physical and mental health, quality of life, and overall life expectancy. Despite growing evidence that place and space, however they are defined (e.g., house; park; fraternity; Facebook), lead to positive or negative health outcomes, there is still a lack of understanding of the relationships and interconnectedness between human life and the environment. Furthermore, the cultural nuances of environments as well as the inequities experienced by low-income, marginalized, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+, communities within these environments has yet to be understood.

This Special Issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) focuses on the connections between built, natural, social and/or virtual environments, and human health. New research papers, reviews, case reports, conference papers, methodological papers, position papers, brief reports, and commentaries are welcome to this issue. We will accept manuscripts from a variety of disciplines.

Dr. Gregory Bratman
Dr. Jennifer D. Roberts
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

environmental justice
health inequities
subjective well-being
reduced ill-being
mental health disorders
affective science
environmental psychology
physical health
infectious or communicable diseases
environmental racism
nature and green space
urban planning; land use
digital divide
internet access
discrimination
human-made surroundings
social, cultural and political environment

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 368 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Practices of Care and Relationship-Building: A Qualitative Analysis of Urban Agriculture’s Impacts on Black People’s Agency and Wellbeing in Philadelphia

by Ashley B. Gripper

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(6), 4831; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064831 - 9 Mar 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1622

Abstract

Gardens and farms provide individuals and communities with access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally significant foods. There is a rich body of literature unpacking the connections between Black urban growing and agency, freedom, resistance, and care. However, spirituality remains one aspect of health and wellbeing that has not been studied extensively in relation to agriculture. The main goal of this study was to conduct focus groups with Philly-based growers to understand the self-determined impacts of urban agriculture on health, agency, and wellbeing. The secondary goal of this work was to determine if these impacts differ by race. I apply a collective agency and community resilience theoretical framework to this study. This framework offers a model to understand agriculture as a way for communities to become self-determined, self-reliant, and self-sustained. For this study exploring the impacts of urban agriculture on health, there were three eligibility criteria. Participants had to be at least 18 years old, identify as Black or White, and have grown food in a garden or farm in Philadelphia. I hosted six race-specific focus groups at Bartram’s Garden in Southwest Philadelphia. The audio recordings were transcribed, and the full transcripts were coded using open and axial coding methods and a “key concepts” framework. We also employed several methods of triangulation to help ensure the credibility and validity of the findings. Four major themes emerged from the data: growing as a demonstration of agency and power, growing as a facilitator of body–mind wellness, community care and relationship-building, and deepened spiritual connection and interdependence. There were both similarities and differences in the impacts of urban agriculture by race. Across the six focus groups, people talked about concepts related to community care and relationship-building as being major benefits of growing food. In both groups, people also brought up significant issues and barriers around land security. Mentions of spirituality appeared more frequently and more emphatically in the Black focus groups. Black focus groups were more likely to discuss the collective impacts of agriculture, while White participants were more likely to discuss the impacts on themselves as individuals. The findings of this focus group study point to some key domains through which agriculture impacts the health of farmers and growers in Philadelphia. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

13 pages, 4365 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Young Adults’ Perception of Forests Using Landscape-Image-Sketching Technique: A Case Study of Changsha, Central China

by Fen Luo, Chen Wang, Haiqian Lei and Zhijun Xiao

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(4), 2986; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042986 - 8 Feb 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1276

Abstract

The forest-landscape image is the bridge for communication between human beings and the forest. The aim of this paper is to construct the landscape-image conceptual model from the personal perception of the forest, with what people are looking at and how they are viewing themselves as a part of the forest. This research constructed a forest-landscape image by young adults by utilizing the landscape-image-sketching technique and selecting 140 young adults who had lived in Changsha, Central China for ten years, using convenience sampling, during April and May 2018. The results demonstrated that the forest was considered as the people’s life world, as rural scenery around the respondents’ homes, instead of the perception of the objective forest, an important habitat for animals and a limited resource supplier for human living. In fact, the natural values of the forest, such as the ecological and aesthetic values, received more attention than the social ones of the forest, including the life, production, and cultural values. Finally, it is important to raise the public’s awareness of the objective entity of the forest and to guide the variety of experiences for the respondents in the forest. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

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17 pages, 1097 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of the Marine Exercise Retreat Program on Thyroid-Related Hormones in Middle-Aged Euthyroid Women

by Hangjin Byeon, Yesol Moon, Seoeun Lee, Gwang-Ic Son and Eunil Lee

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(2), 1542; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021542 - 14 Jan 2023

Viewed by 1808

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effects of a marine exercise retreat program on thyroid-related hormone levels. A total of 62 middle-aged euthyroid women participated in a 6-day marine exercise retreat program. Using thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (fT4) hormone levels, the participants were divided into high and low-hormone-level groups. Despite decreased TSH and fT4 levels after the program, the factors influencing changes in each group were different. TSH levels were influenced by changes in the normalized low frequency (nLF) of heart rate variability and carbon monoxide (CO) from all the participants, and changes in body fat percentage, nLF, and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) exposure level in the high TSH group. fT4 levels were influenced by changes in body mass index (BMI), NO₂ exposure, and particulate matter diameter of 10 µm or less (PM₁₀) exposure in all participants. Changes in BMI and CO exposure influenced the low fT4 group. Lastly, changes in the exercise stress test affected the high fT4 group. Thus, the marine exercise retreat program affected euthyroid thyroid-related hormone levels, and influencing factors differ depending on the initial value of the hormone. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

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14 pages, 4132 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Correlation between Campus-Built Environment and Physical Fitness in College Students in Xi’an—A GIS Approach

by Zijun Lu, Zhengao Li, Chuangui Mao, Yuanyuan Tan, Xingyue Zhang, Ling Zhang, Wenfei Zhu and Yuliang Sun

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(13), 7948; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137948 - 29 Jun 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2175

Abstract

Background: This research aimed to investigate the correlation between students’ physical fitness and campus-built environment, which could put forward some suggestions for the construction of a campus environment. Method: Four colleges in Xi’an were regarded as special “semi-closed” spaces. Combined with ArcGIS and SPSS, the correlation between the built environment of colleges and the students’ physical fitness test results in 2019 was analyzed (n = 1498). Results: regarding the men questioned in this research, there was a significant correlation between street connectivity and vital capacity, grip strength, 50 m running, 1000 m running, a significant correlation between land use mix and vital capacity, sit-and-reach, pull-up, grip strength, a significant correlation between green space per capita and vital capacity, grip strength, 50 m running, and a significant correlation between walk score and vital capacity, pull-up, grip strength, and 50 m running. Regarding the women questioned in this research, there was a significant correlation between street connectivity and vital capacity, grip strength, 50 m running, 800 m running, curl-up, a significant correlation between land use mix and vital capacity, sit-and-reach, curl-up, grip strength, 800 m running, a significant correlation between green space per capita and vital capacity, grip strength, curl-up, sit-and-reach, and a significant correlation between walk score and vital capacity, curl-up, grip strength, and 800 m running. Conclusion: the built environment on campus can indirectly affect the physical fitness of college students. Increasing the number of intersections and short connections of campus streets, ensuring that the green space of the campus meets the standards, and reasonably arranging the site selection of buildings are conducive to improving the physical fitness of students. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

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23 pages, 2597 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Changing Home: A Cross-Sectional Study on Environmental Degradation, Resettlement and Psychological Distress in a Western German Coal-Mining Region

by Theresa Krüger, Thomas Kraus and Andrea Kaifie

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(12), 7143; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19127143 - 10 Jun 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3378

Abstract

Unwelcome environmental changes can lead to psychological distress, known as “solastalgia”. In Germany, the open-pit mining of brown coal results in environmental changes as well as in the resettlement of adjacent villages. In this study, we investigated the risk of open-pit mining for solastalgia and psychological disorders (e.g., depression, generalized anxiety and somatization) in local communities. The current residents and resettlers from two German open-pit mines were surveyed concerning environmental stressors, place attachment, impacts and mental health status. In total, 620 people responded, including 181 resettlers, 114 people from villages threatened by resettlement and 325 people from non-threatened villages near an open-pit mine. All groups self-reported high levels of psychological distress, approximately ranging between 2–7.5 times above the population average. Respondents from resettlement-threatened villages showed the worst mental health status, with 52.7% indicating at least moderate somatization levels (score sum > 9), compared to 28% among resettlers. We observed a mean PHQ depression score of 7.9 (SD 5.9) for people from resettlement-threatened villages, 7.4 (SD 6.0) for people from not-threatened villages, compared to 5.0 (SD 6.5) for already resettled people (p < 0.001). In conclusion, the degradation and loss of the home environment caused by open-pit mining was associated with an increased prevalence of depressive, anxious and somatoform symptoms in local communities. This reveals a need for further in-depth research, targeted psychosocial support and improved policy frameworks, in favor of residents’ and resettlers’ mental health. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

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9 pages, 575 KiB

Open AccessBrief Report

Disconnected: What Can We Learn from Individuals with Very Low Nature Connection?

by Alexia Barrable and David Booth

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(13), 8021; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19138021 - 30 Jun 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3973

Abstract

While nature connection, which describes a positive relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world, has been a focus of numerous research studies in the last few decades, relatively little attention has been paid to nature disconnection. While the majority of the populations reported in most studies tend to be highly connected, there is a small percentage of those who feel they have no connection to the natural world. In this paper, we examine this novel construct of nature disconnection through secondary analysis of existing data from the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment survey (MENE) by Natural England. From our analysis of this disconnected population, we can see that they are more likely to be young (16–24 years old), male, not employed and living in rented accommodation. We also observe that they have lower levels of life satisfaction and pro-environmental behaviours. We go on to present an initial theoretical discussion as to the origins of disconnection and propose further research directions to tackle the under-theorisation of this construct. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Built, Natural, Social, and Virtual Environments on Human Health)

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