Groundwork and Health
Groundwork activity impacting on the health of local communities
Groundwork works in areas with some of the highest deprivation indices in the country. Evidence shows that there are positive relationships between health benefits and proximity of green spaces and that this is strongest for lower socio economic groups.1
The type of activities that we are involved in include:
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Health Improvement
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Using parks, pocket parks, canal sides, allotments and community gardens to work with young people and adults in urban areas - provides “mental breathing space”, physical exercise and opportunities for healthy behaviours, including food choice
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Community capacity building - addresses self efficacy, skills improvement and improvement of the physical environment
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Employment programmes - provides a means for people to get into sustained employment and learn skills, as well as providing a setting for addressing mental health, physical activity and sensitive areas of health, such as sexual health
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Gardening Groups - provides an important means of physical activity, with the benefits for mental and physical wellbeing associated with it
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Provision of waterways - the leisure opportunities associated with them have benefits across mental health, physical health and protection of ecological balance
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Improving hospital open spaces - improvment of the aesthetic environment to increase recovery rates
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Health Protection
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Protecting the environmental infrastructure and caring for the sustainability of its flora and fauna - an important means of ensuring that the adverse health effects of poor environmental sustainability are avoided/minimised
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Developing cycleways, walkways and footpaths - green corridors which reduce emissions as well as other health impacts of traffic
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Tree planting - shown to have a positive impact on health
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Ensuring the ecological balance of waterways - important in protecting the public from adverse climate change and disease vectors created by disruption of essential ecosystems
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Building the Basis for Health
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Projects to develop skill sets for activity within the natural environment - the development of these skill sets has been shown to be an important factor in the self-regulation of health
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Creating a rhythm of physical activity as part of daily life within the environment - important in ensuring physical activity becomes a way of life, making the 'healthy and alternative', 'normal and mainstream'
The natural environment and health
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Access to and use of high quality natural environments for all the community
- Walkways and cycle ways to increase activity
- Green space in urban areas as a means of relaxation and improving mental health
- Green gyms or walking clubs
- Active involvement in environmental projects: nature reserves, allotments, community gardens and community woodlands, as a means of improving cognitive and social skills and providing stress relief, and to contribute towards educating for healthy living
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'Environmental Justice' as a basis for health - The need for a high quality environment for good health
- Working for a natural environment free from toxic, chemical or biological pathogens which acts as part of a wider ecosystem to sustain human life
- Projects to create a good quality environmental infrastructure - Failure to provide a good quality natural environmental infrastructure in urban areas has been associated with illness2
- Plant life for a sustainable microclimate which provides good air quality and drainage in areas of high deprivation, encourages use of the environment and contributes to reductions in respiratory disease
- Helping make urban green space an integral aspect of urban design, especially in more disadvantaged communities3
1 De Vries S., Verheij R. and Groenewgen PP. (2000) Nature and health; an exploratory investigation of the relationship between health and green space in the living environment Mes en Maatschappij 75;4 320-339
2 Jackson, L.E. The relationship of urban design to human health and condition - Landscape and Urban Planning 64 191-2 (2003)
3 Health inequalities and environmental justice; towards an evidence base and Green Alliance - 2003 - A Green Bill of Health London
