Abstract
Lockdown aiming at slowing COVID-19 transmission has altered nature accessibility patterns, creating quasi-experimental conditions to assess if retracted nature contact and perceived nature deprivation influence physical and emotional wellbeing. We measure through on-line survey methods (n = 529) how pandemic mandates limiting personal movement and outdoor nature access within the United States affect self-assessed nature exposure, perceived nature deprivation, and subsequent flourishing as measured by the Harvard Flourishing Index. Results indicate that perceived nature deprivation strongly associates with local nature contact, time in nature, and access to municipal nature during the pandemic, after controlling for lockdown mandates, job status, household composition, and sociodemographic variables. Our hypothesis is that individuals with strong perceived nature deprivation under COVID-19 leads to diminished wellbeing proved true. Interaction models of flourishing showed positive modification of nature affinity with age and qualitative modification of nature deprivation with race. Our results demonstrate the potential of local nature contact to support individual wellbeing in a background context of emotional distress and social isolation, important in guiding public health policies beyond pandemics.
Highlights
Greater time spent in nature under COVID-19 restrictions vis-à-vis pre-pandemic had the most pronounced effect on reducing feelings of deprivation among all exposure variables (−1.07, 95% CI: (−1.32, −0.81), p ≤0.001)
Other exposure variables significantly associated with lower perceived nature deprivation were public nature parks and reserves remaining fully open under the pandemic as compared to restricted entry policies, attenuated COVID-19 sheltering policies, pet ownership, older age, and Western U.S residence
Substantial evidence exists for enhanced human health outcomes in the presence of nature
Summary
Evidence of nature’s beneficial impact on physical [1,2,3,4,5], cognitive [6,7,8,9], and emotional health [10,11,12,13] is well substantiated in scientific literature. Multiple studies indicate that exposure to nature amplifies beneficial physical, psychological, and emotional outcomes. Nature connectivity is core to the environmental psychology literature regarding pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors [61,62,63,64]. As far as we know, only one study [68] formally analyzes nature connectivity as a potential modifier of nature contact to assess wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviors
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