2025 NW Nature and Health Symposium
On May 21, 2025, more than 100 students, researchers, healthcare professionals, and community advocates joined together for our 8th annual symposium. We came together with a shared purpose—to deepen our understanding of the profound connection between nature and human well-being and to advance bold, inclusive strategies that ensure everyone has access to the healing power of green and blue spaces—especially those who have long carried the undue weight of environmental and social injustice.
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2024 Nature and Health Symposium
On May 1, 2024, over 100 researchers, community members, students, and policy makers attended the seventh annual Northwest Nature and Health Symposium at the wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House. Seven speakers from institutions across the US, in addition to a panel from the Greening Research in Tacoma project, presented on topics centered on the interconnections between nature and human well-being.
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Call for UW Student Posters
Calling UW students studying fields related to Nature and Health—share your work at the Northwest Nature and Health Symposium on May 1!
Nature and Health illuminates the connections between nature and human health and well-being.
From Labs to the Streets, Experts Work to Defuse Childhood Threats to Mental Health
The Picower Institute · May 18, 2023
Featuring Gregory Bratman, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member
Threats to lifelong mental health can arise for young children from sources including poverty, abuse or neglect at home and racism, inequity and pollution outside their doors, but the hopeful message that a range of experts brought to MIT May 11 was that amid these many risks, approaches to provide effective protections and remedies are numerous and growing.
2023 Nature and Health Symposium: Healing Connections
On April 21-22, 2023, community members were invited to gather for the Healing Connections: Nature and Wellness Symposium and Community Day to celebrate Earth Day. The symposium was held at the Pagoda in Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, WA.
Read more2022 Nature and Health Symposium: Body, Mind, and Soul: A Return to Nature’s Gifts
Nature and Health hosted our annual symposium on October 11-13, 2022 at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center. This symposia, titled Body, Mind, and Soul: A Return to Nature’s Gifts, highlighted transdisciplinary research at the intersection of equity, health, nature, and well-being.
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2021 Nature and Health Symposium: Generating Understanding Across Communities and Disciplines
More than 300 participants from across the globe joined us for our first virtual symposium, Generating Understanding Across Communities and Disciplines. Over the three-day conference, over 100 speakers gave presentations related to disciplines such as social and natural sciences, humanities, health, conservation, planning and education that are currently shaping policies, programs, practices, and designs to benefit all people and nature in a variety of settings.
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2019 Northwest Nature and Health Symposium
This third annual all-day symposium explored our common goals and collective strategies related to the human health benefits of contact with nature. We recognize that we must amplify access and equity in all that we do.
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