Developing the Finnish model of Healthy Parks, Healthy People

Healthy Parks, Healthy People: The Health Benefits of Contact with Nature in a Park Context

Ed. note: With the increasing recognition of the value of nature to human health and wellbeing, Parks Victoria will host the first International Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress in 2010. The aim of the congress is to raise awareness of recent research, highlight case studies, and facilitate discussion regarding the advantages of, and opportunities for, future collaboration. The congress wi...

Healthy forest parks make healthy people: Forest environments enhance human immune function

Healthy buildings, healthy people

When researcher Melkam Kebede started her five-year fellowship at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia, she was struck by the abundance of natural light and design features that encouraged people to move and mingle. “I’ve worked in many places before, but never seen laboratories with so much natural light,” says Kebede, whose research is on the links between type 2 ...

HealtHy people depend on HealtHy

Paying People to Be Healthy

User Financial Incentives (UFIs) have emerged as a powerful tool for health promotion. Strong evidence suggests that large enough incentives paid to individuals, conditional on behaviour they can control, encourages more of the desired behaviour. However, such interventions can have unintended consequences for non-targeted behaviours. Implementation difficulties that result in individuals not u...