NCT04642235

Nature and Well-Being Project

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 74 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

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.

Conditions

• Environmental Exposure
• Health Behavior
• Health, Subjective

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Nature Nook	The Nature Nook intervention will take place on lots that already have the standard greening intervention. In addition, design elements will be added such as a simple path and benches to explicitly invite people into the space. An additional difference is the exclusive use of larger, corner lots, rather than smaller mid-block spaces, to maximize visibility.
BEHAVIORAL	Nature Coach	The Nature Coach Intervention consists of 3 components - home visit, text message follow up, and goal feedback. Home visit. During the 1-hour home visit, the coach will (a) provide education about the health benefits of nature, (b) identify nearby nature targets for the participant to visit, (c) complete a pre-commitment contract based on individualized weekly nature goals, and (d) brainstorm barriers and solutions to reaching the goals. Personalized weekly text messages. Texts will serve as reminders of goals set with the Nature Coach, as well as encouragement to meet the goals. The context of text messages with change slightly based on individual participants, the goals they set, and the barriers they identify. Goal feedback- At the end of each week, participants will receive a progression badge via text message that shows the amount of days and time they spent in nature, and how this matched up to the goal set with the Nature Coach.
OTHER	Nature Nook + Nature Coach	The combined intervention will involve the installation of Nature Nooks to blighted vacant lots followed by the delivery of the Nature Coach intervention to people living in the immediate surrounding blocks. The intervention will be tailored to explicitly direct participants to use the Nature Nook.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-04-12
• Primary completion: 2022-08-23
• Completion: 2022-08-23
• First posted: 2020-11-24
• Last updated: 2022-09-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States