ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the role of living spaces, neighborhood environments, and access to nearby nature in shaping individual experiences of health and well-being during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Key data is drawn from the GreenCOVID study across Spain, England and Ireland. The survey gathered contextual information about home environments, neighborhood spaces, and access to nature elements, and standardized measures of health and wellbeing between April and July 2020 (n = 3,127). The paper used qualitative data from the survey to document flows between home and nearby nature. These were framed as barriers/mediators with specific focus on differing interpretations of home as both trap and refuge, with additional dimensions of loss, disruption and interruption shaping the broad responses to the pandemic. By contrast nearby nature was an enabler/moderator of health and wellbeing, offering healthy flows between home and nature as well as respite and additional health-enabling factors. Differences were identified between the three countries but important commonalities emerged too, recognising the role nature plays as an asset both within and immediately beyond the home. The use of flow as metaphor also recognises the importance of embodiment and the elastic nature of connections between home and nearby nature for wellbeing. More broadly, flow provides a valuable way to trace affective relational geographers to develop a wider understanding of assemblages of health during pandemics.
ABSTRACT
Given the impact of COVID-19 on populations, especially under lockdown conditions, there has been more attention than ever focused on the role of nature, including green and blue spaces, to act as a form of health-enabler across societies. Access to green space, with its potential for physical activity and mental health support has been specifically identified within the literature as an important asset for neighbourhood and citizen health and wellbeing. The established positive relationships between access to and benefits from green and blue space are variable over space, both in terms of the kinds of built environments in which people live, but also the availability nearby of natural assets like parks, coasts, rivers, etc.;as well as ease of access to those spaces for all citizens. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries have developed as part of their public health strategies, a series of lockdown measures in which citizens have either been confined to home, or at best, a small catchment area immediately surrounding their homes. As part of a flurry of recent research on such relationships, the GreenCOVID study was carried out by a group of researchers in Spain, the UK and Ireland, all broadly operating to a similar framework and collecting information from the general adult population in each of the three countries. This short commentary introduces the survey alongside preliminary Irish results specifically focused on household characteristics, access to nearby green space as well as a measure of psychological wellbeing.