The project

One in nine adults in the EU suffers from a mental health disorder, a burden which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting the inclusion of mental health as one of the five strands of the EU non- communicable diseases initiative.

The financial costs of mental health problems extend to over 4% of GDP across the 27 EU countries and the UK. Still, already over-burdened healthcare systems struggle to provide necessary services for non-physical health priorities, leading to gaps in prevention and treatment, and underdiagnosis. Mental health inequities are strongly linked to gender and socioeconomic disparities.

Furthermore, mental health disorders are uniquely linked with exposure to environmental crises such as climate change. Those with mental illness are two to three times more likely to die during heatwaves; and extreme weather events have been shown to lead to post- traumatic stress disorder among other serious mental health conditions. Suicide, anxiety, depression and acute stress have all been linked to extreme temperatures, and knowledge of climate change and fear of worsening climate conditions has been linked to stress and anxious feelings.

Meanwhile, there is burgeoning evidence that green care (i.e., the provision of health and social services via contact with nature) can be used to promote mental health and wellbeing for the general population and particularly for underprivileged populations with greater risk for mental health disorders.

Learn more about the objectives

Objectives

To this end, GreenME aims to identify ways in which effective nature-based therapies and a broader green care framework can be scaled-up to improve adult mental health and wellbeing equity in Europe while contributing to multiple socio-ecological co-benefits.

By mental health and wellbeing equity we refer to distributing the benefit of green care for mental health fairly, acknowledging that access to and need for green care varies among different social groups. We focus on the mental health and wellbeing of those age 18 as existing interventions that are comparable across countries and that together would allow us to produce valid results of in- depth evaluations focusing on causal pathways, are primarily limited to adult clients. We propose a robust research plan which includes a diagnosis of current green care status, a set of studies on the associations between the different scales of green care and mental health and wellbeing equity in urban, semi-urban, rural, semi-rural and coastal settings, and finally a set of tools co-created with and green care actors to scale-up green care in consortium countries.

Specific objectives

Objective 1

A comprehensive understanding of the current state of nature-based therapy and green care in seven study countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA), including existing organisational and financial models, and opportunities and barriers for equitable access to green care in Europe.

Objective 2

Stronger evidence on how and to what degree specific nature-based therapies in urban, semi- urban, rural, and coastal areas benefit mental health and wellbeing.

Objective 3

Increased evidence on the relationship between exposure to nature-in-everyday-life and nature-based health promotion and mental health and wellbeing equity in study countries.

Objective 4

Empowerment of green care actors and optimisation of partnerships among them to ensure the scaling-up of green care and its integration in healthcare systems to promote mental health and wellbeing equity.

Objective 5

Outreach and exploitation of GreenME results.