Evidence on the contribution of community gardens to promote physical and mental health and well-being of non-institutionalized individuals: a systematic review

Copyright: © 2021 Lampert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Introduction: There has been growing interest in community gardens as an effective and affordable health promotion strategy. However, most available evidence is derived from qualitative studies, whereas quantitative research on this subject is limited. Objectives: To synthetize the literature about physical and mental health outcomes associated with community gardening. Two main questions were addressed: a) is there evidence, from quantitative studies, that community gardening is associated to physical and mental health and well-being of non-institutionalized individuals? b) Does community gardening provokes any discomfort in terms of physical health, i.e., bodily pain, to their beneficiaries? Methods: A systematic review of the literature was carried out following PRISMA guidelines by searching relevant electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science). Empirical, quantitative studies published in English with no restrictions concerning the date of publication were considered eligible. The quality of the evidence was appraised using the tool developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. Results: Overall, 8 studies were considered eligible, of which seven studies were rated as having good methodological quality (one scored as fair). Community gardeners had significantly better health outcomes than their neighbours not engaged in gardening activities in terms of life satisfaction, happiness, general health, mental health, and social cohesion. Conclusion: Community gardens are associated to health gains for their users, irrespective of age, being an affordable and efficient way of promoting physical and mental health and well-being. To encourage the design, maintenance, and prospective evaluation of supportive urban environments promoting healthy and, at the same time, sustainable lifestyles, is essential to achieve public health gains and environmental sustainability.This literature review was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and by the Empresa Municipal de Ambiente de Cascais through a doctoral grant to the first author of this paper (PDE/BDE/122672/2016). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O Jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Arquitectura, apresentada na Universidade de Lisboa - Faculdade de Arquitectura.Os espaços verdes assumem um papel de relevo em diversas áreas, nomeadamente a arquitetura. O arquiteto tem como função criar, projetar e valorizar espaços que proporcionem ao ser humano uma melhor qualidade de vida urbana. Desta forma, é fundamental que a influência dos espaços verdes seja considerada nos contextos ecológico, humano e urbano. O presente estudo tem como objetivo avaliar a importância do espaço verde para o ser humano e perceber de que forma este espaço pode contribuir para a promoção de uma vida urbana mais saudável. O método utilizado neste estudo consistiu na revisão bibliográfica, bem como na realização do caso de estudo escolhido, o Jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG), em Lisboa. Neste âmbito foram aplicados inquéritos e posteriormente efetuada uma análise de observação deste mesmo espaço. Conclui-se que existe uma forte relação entre os habitantes de Lisboa com o jardim da FCG e que a interação entre o ser humano e o espaço verde é imprescindível para que haja uma melhor qualidade de vida urbana.ABSTRACT: Green areas play a relevant role in several fields, specially Architecture. The role of the architect is to create, design and value areas that provide people with a better quality of urban life. Thus, the influence of green areas has to be considered in ecological, human and urbane contexts, as a mandatory matter. The present research aims to evaluate the importance of the green areas to people and comprehend how these areas can contribute to furthering a more healthy urban life. The method used in this study consisted of a bibliographic review, as well as a performing of the choosen case study, the garden of Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG), in Lisbon. In this regard, surveys have been applied and subsequently an analysis of an observation of this area has been performed. The conclusion is that there's a strong relationship between Lisbon inhabitants and the FCG's garden and that the interaction between people and green areas is essential in order to achieve a better quality of urban life