King5: Mental Health Benefits of Nature Should Influence City Planning, Says UW Study

City planners should consider the mental health benefits of green spaces when making plans for the future of their cities.

That’s according to a new study out of University of Washington that says urban green spaces can help improve mental health. The study found that accounting for the economic impacts of these benefits might help cities prioritize investments in urban nature.

Greg Bratman, assistant professor in environmental and forest sciences at University of Washington, was the lead author on the paper, a collaboration with 25 other scientists in this emerging field of study.

“Nature experiences can have benefits for mood, memory, and emotion regulation. What are the mental health repercussions of nature experiences, or of changing a landscape from natural to urban? Those effects are not typically being taken into account,” Bratman said explaining the motivation for the study.