Grahn, P. & U.R. Stigsdotter, 2003, Landscape planning and stress, in: Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, ,
- Author : Grahn, P. & U.R. Stigsdotter
- Year : 2003
- Journal/Series : Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
- Pages : 1-18
- Abstract in English : Stress and stress-related illnesses, as reflected in medical records, have increased dramatically among adults and children in Western societies. In this paper, the overall aim was to study whether the public urban open green spaces of a town or a city affect feelings of stress among the inhabitants and thus reduce the amount of stress-related reactions due to exhaustion. With regard to this aim, three secondary questions were formulated: * Are there differences regarding the effect of the urban open green space as a restorative environment that cab be linked to the sex, age and socio-economic status of the individual? * What importance does travel time or distance to the urban open green space have in terms of use of such spaces? * Can individuals compensate for a lack of urban open green spaces near their residential area by visiting more remote green areas instead? * [the answers have not been summarized in this Le-Notre-abstract]. The roots of stress and the restorative power of nature have been summarized. The working hypothesis of the authors is that good landscape planning can contribute to creating a less stressful and more restorative everyday environment for inhabitants in town and cities: interactions with urban green open space could help to physically and emotionally restore human beings. The design and the content of outdoor environment seem to be of importance for the recovery of a stressed person visiting the environment. The Main aim of this study was to focus on the town dwellers ‘everyday situation, and the goals were to: * Measure the prevalence of stress symptoms among Swedish urban dwellers. * Obtain information on the town-dwellers’ background, in terms of sex, age and socioeconomic status. * obtain information on their home environment and access to a garden.* Obtain information on their habits visiting urban green open spaces in order to determine whether there were any statistical relationships between environment en stress. The results of this research suggest that the more often a person visits urban open green spaces the less often he or she will reports stress-related illnesses. The same pattern is shown when time spent per week in urban open green spaces is measured. This article make clear that green areas near apartment house and a good access, could make for more restorative environments.
- Comments/Notes : KEYWORDS: Urban forestry, landscape planning, stress, health, restorative environments, urban open green spaces, access, compensative environments.