Clinical trial NCT04642235: Nature and Well-Being Project
Official title: Nature and Well-Being Project
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Environmental Exposure
Health Behavior
Health, Subjective
Lead sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: American Heart Association
name: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
name: United States Forest Service
name: OLIN Studio
First posted: 2020-11-24
Enrollment: 74
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The investigators pilot test two intervention strategies to increase green space use- place-based and person-based, as well as evaluate the dose-response relationship between green space use and health.

Detailed description: Neighborhood conditions can positively impact mental health and wellbeing. Green space has been cited as a potential buffer between inequitable neighborhood conditions and poor health. However, there is limited evidence how to increase exposure to green space and how much exposure is needed to produce benefit. Place-based and person-based interventions offer contrasting approaches to improving the impact of the environment on health. The environment influences people as they traverse the spaces between home, work, and recreation, in ways that can be healthy or harmful. Place-based approaches directly change the environment to encourage healthy behaviors, and potentially have broad population impact. Alternatively, person-based approaches directly target individuals' behavior and may be more feasible. To our knowledge, no studies combine both approaches into a single intervention, which may be more effective over either alone.

The broad objectives of this proposal are to pilot test two intervention strategies to increase green space use- place-based and person-based, as well as evaluate the dose-response relationship between green space use and health. Our place-based intervention, Nature Nooks, builds on our prior greening treatment by adding new features to encourage use - a path and benches to invite people into the space and instillation on large corner lots to maximize visibility. The investigators develop our person-based intervention, Nature Coach, as a novel adoption of an analogous, established patient navigator concept in healthcare.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* 18 years or older
* Live in one of the 8 target neighborhoods identified
* Have a smartphone
* Able to understand and respond to an oral interview in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Unwilling to go outside
* Not ambulatory

Primary outcomes:
measure: Green Space Use
timeFrame: 12 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Mental health and well-being: CES-D
timeFrame: 12 months
measure: Mental health and well-being: PSS-10
timeFrame: 12 months
measure: Mental health and well-being: WHO-5
timeFrame: 12 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Philadelphia
country: United States
facility: University of Pennsylvania, Department of Emergency Medicine
state: Pennsylvania
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Pennsylvania
name: Eugenia South, MD MS
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: