Health and the natural environment
Growing medical evidence shows that access to the natural environment improves health and wellbeing, prevents disease and helps people recover from illness. Experiencing nature in the outdoors can help tackle obesity, coronary heart disease and mental health problems.
How the natural environment benefits health
The natural environment offers many benefits for health and wellbeing:
- It reduces stress levels.
- It encourages people to be more active, which is very good for health.
- It helps people avoid getting ill.
- It helps people keep stable once they have got an illness.
- People live longer if they live near areas of green space.
Programmes providing regular health walks, which create strong links with the natural environment, could be greatly expanded. The UK has one of the highest death rates from heart disease in Europe, with 115,000 dying prematurely each year. People using the natural environment keep active longer and adults who become more active halve their risk of dying early from heart disease.
See the headline facts about the cost of obesity and physical inactivity.
Natural England and health
Natural England wants more people to get out into the natural environment to have fun and get active. Being active outdoors makes people feel good, helps them to live longer and connects them to their local area. We are working to strengthen the connections between people and the natural environment, wherever they live.
We are working to strengthen the connections between people and the natural environment, wherever they live. We help communities to understand how their local natural environment can benefit their health and wellbeing.
Our key health projects
There are a number of ways in which Natural England is promoting the link between health and the natural environment:
Our Natural Health Service
In the battle to confront health problems and other diseases a great national resource is being vastly underused. England’s natural green space - our public parks, woodlands, countryside and even our tree lined streets, provides an opportunity to improve health and reduce rates of 21st Century diseases.
Used in the right way, it represents our Natural Health Service: a treatment which is cost effective and free - the same principles applied when setting up the National Health Service 60 years ago.Getting more people out walking
Walking for Health aims to get sedentary people out on short local walks. We support a network of more than 600 led walk groups across England.
Walking for Health website
Green Exercise
Green Exercise is any informal physical activity that takes place outdoors: from gardening, cycling and walking in urban green areas, to kite flying and conservation projects in the countryside. We supported eight Green Exercise pilots. These aimed to explore different ways of getting diverse groups active in the natural environment.Getting patients outdoors
We aim to establish routes for frontline healthcare staff to point patients towards physical activity in the natural environment. The Physical Activity Care Pathway and NHS Alliance pilots are identifying ways in which doctors' practices and primary care trusts can use outdoor activities such as walking and Green Exercise as part of the wider 'exercise referral'.National Nature Reserves and health
There are 224 National Nature Reserves in England. They are home to a number of projects with a particular health focus, including our partnership with Phoenix Futures.Outdoor Health Forum
The Outdoor Health Forum (OHF) represents all the major environmental organisations that share the belief that the natural environment is a major contributor to human health.
Further information
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(18 November 2011) For more than 10 years Natural England and its predecessors has been helping to develop and support a national programme of community-led health walks, called Walking for Health.
