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Dr Owen Douglas
Hosted by University College Cork, the 49th Conference of Irish Geographers took place from the 4th to the 6th of May 2017. With the overarching theme of ‘Disruptions and Transgressions’, an aim of the conference was to explore the blurring of disciplinary boundaries across space, society and environment.
Co-chaired by Dr Owen Douglas of the UCD Eco-Health team and Dr Ronan Foley of Maynooth University, the ‘Healthy Natures’ session included papers and speakers exploring the environment/nature-health association from the perspective of multiple disciplines and ‘user-groups’.
The first speaker was Sonya Agnew, a PhD candidate from the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy. In her paper titled “Growing fruit, vegetable and sustainability in urban community gardens”, Sonya presented results from her study which employed a walk along methodology involving 35 semi-structured interviews in community garden spaces in Dublin. Interviewees identified mental health and physical well-being benefits, in addition to improved community cohesion as key benefits of - and motivations for - their participation in community gardening. Such benefits clearly compliment other recognised benefits attributed to urban gardening including increased environmental activity, supporting community involved food and nutrition education and catalysing cultural diversity, creativity and urban regeneration. In identifying these benefits across multiple user groups, the research demonstrates the potential role of urban gardening in fostering and supporting new forms of urban sustainability which transcend disciplinary boundaries.
The second presentation was delivered by Dr Ronan Foley of Maynooth University. In his presentation Dr Foley provided an outline of the recently launched EPA-HSE funded project “Green and blue spaces and health: a health-led approach” on which he is the PI. This project aims to examine the associations between green and blue infrastructure (GBI) and human health from a “health-led” direction. That is, rather than starting with available GBI data, the research starts with health data to model environment/health interactions. In so-doing, the research will identify the elements and configurations of GBI elements contributing to known health outcomes. In taking this approach, this research requires the identification, manipulation and analysis of health data from multiple sources, which exists in different formats and at various scales and resolutions. Successful completion of the project will provide important information for professional users across the broad fields of health, planning and geography.
The third speaker was Dr Michael Brennan of the Eastern & Midlands Regional Assembly and formerly of UCD. Dr Brennan’s talk was titled “Deprivation and Trees: spatial inequality of urban tree canopy cover in Dublin city”. Dr Brennan outlined how ‘green infrastructure’ (GI), has become increasingly recognised as crucial the health and well-being of urban residents, providing a host of physical, economic and social benefits; including climate regulation, air pollutant reduction, increases in property price, and relaxing spaces. The empirical analysis focused on urban trees – key components of any city’s green infrastructure – and how access to GI (and the benefits provided) is often not equally distributed among different socio-economic groups. Recognising such socio-spatial inequalities, Dr Brennan identified the need to identify areas with the least amount of, and hence greatest need for, GI. The talk provided 1) a city level assessment of one green infrastructure element (urban tree canopy cover) for Dublin 2) examined how tree cover relates to measures of socioeconomic deprivation in this city, and 3) discussed the potential for increasing urban tree cover within areas currently impoverished in this resource. In so-doing, the paper identified spatial equity in the distribution of urban trees as an important consideration in understanding the association between GI provision and population health.
The final speaker was Dr Owen Douglas of the UCD Eco-Health team. In his talk, Dr Douglas explored the intersections of public health and green space by reflecting on the need to move beyond an overriding concern with equity in the spatial distribution of green spaces towards a focus on the quality, or character, of those green spaces provided. The talk resonated with recent calls in environmental justice literature to move past a simple focus on ‘distribution’, and engage more fine-grained studies focused on issues of ‘opportunities’ and individual agency, functioning and well-being when examining the goods potentially offered us by the environment. This line of reasoning is re-enforced by empirical research which has demonstrated that differences in age, gender, cultural background and socio-economic status influence a person’s relationship with green space. This suggests that the planning and design of green spaces should focus not only on provision, accessibility and distribution, but on design interventions that complement proximity by enticing people to use green spaces to enhance health and well-being. It is to this challenge that the UCD Eco-Health Project is responding.
In responding to the Conference theme of ‘Disruption and Transgressions’, a clear recognition of the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of the health-environment relationship was identified by all of the speakers in the ‘Healthy Natures’ session. The contributions to the session were notable for the diverse research methods used to explore health-nature interactions, from qualitative walk-along interviews to modelling and mapping to capture GBI and health associations, spatial equity in GI distribution and theoretical considerations employing an ‘opportunities’ approach. A particular theme identified was the potential variation in the nature-health association depending on user characteristics (health, socio-demographics) and GI proximity and quality/character. As such a blurring of disciplinary boundaries across space, society and environment was clearly identified.
Dr Owen Douglas
Hosted by University College Cork, the 49th Conference of Irish Geographers took place from the 4th to the 6th of May 2017. With the overarching theme of ‘Disruptions and Transgressions’, an aim of the conference was to explore the blurring of disciplinary boundaries across space, society and environment.
Co-chaired by Dr Owen Douglas of the UCD Eco-Health team and Dr Ronan Foley of Maynooth University, the ‘Healthy Natures’ session included papers and speakers exploring the environment/nature-health association from the perspective of multiple disciplines and ‘user-groups’.
The first speaker was Sonya Agnew, a PhD candidate from the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy. In her paper titled “Growing fruit, vegetable and sustainability in urban community gardens”, Sonya presented results from her study which employed a walk along methodology involving 35 semi-structured interviews in community garden spaces in Dublin. Interviewees identified mental health and physical well-being benefits, in addition to improved community cohesion as key benefits of - and motivations for - their participation in community gardening. Such benefits clearly compliment other recognised benefits attributed to urban gardening including increased environmental activity, supporting community involved food and nutrition education and catalysing cultural diversity, creativity and urban regeneration. In identifying these benefits across multiple user groups, the research demonstrates the potential role of urban gardening in fostering and supporting new forms of urban sustainability which transcend disciplinary boundaries.
The second presentation was delivered by Dr Ronan Foley of Maynooth University. In his presentation Dr Foley provided an outline of the recently launched EPA-HSE funded project “Green and blue spaces and health: a health-led approach” on which he is the PI. This project aims to examine the associations between green and blue infrastructure (GBI) and human health from a “health-led” direction. That is, rather than starting with available GBI data, the research starts with health data to model environment/health interactions. In so-doing, the research will identify the elements and configurations of GBI elements contributing to known health outcomes. In taking this approach, this research requires the identification, manipulation and analysis of health data from multiple sources, which exists in different formats and at various scales and resolutions. Successful completion of the project will provide important information for professional users across the broad fields of health, planning and geography.
The third speaker was Dr Michael Brennan of the Eastern & Midlands Regional Assembly and formerly of UCD. Dr Brennan’s talk was titled “Deprivation and Trees: spatial inequality of urban tree canopy cover in Dublin city”. Dr Brennan outlined how ‘green infrastructure’ (GI), has become increasingly recognised as crucial the health and well-being of urban residents, providing a host of physical, economic and social benefits; including climate regulation, air pollutant reduction, increases in property price, and relaxing spaces. The empirical analysis focused on urban trees – key components of any city’s green infrastructure – and how access to GI (and the benefits provided) is often not equally distributed among different socio-economic groups. Recognising such socio-spatial inequalities, Dr Brennan identified the need to identify areas with the least amount of, and hence greatest need for, GI. The talk provided 1) a city level assessment of one green infrastructure element (urban tree canopy cover) for Dublin 2) examined how tree cover relates to measures of socioeconomic deprivation in this city, and 3) discussed the potential for increasing urban tree cover within areas currently impoverished in this resource. In so-doing, the paper identified spatial equity in the distribution of urban trees as an important consideration in understanding the association between GI provision and population health.
The final speaker was Dr Owen Douglas of the UCD Eco-Health team. In his talk, Dr Douglas explored the intersections of public health and green space by reflecting on the need to move beyond an overriding concern with equity in the spatial distribution of green spaces towards a focus on the quality, or character, of those green spaces provided. The talk resonated with recent calls in environmental justice literature to move past a simple focus on ‘distribution’, and engage more fine-grained studies focused on issues of ‘opportunities’ and individual agency, functioning and well-being when examining the goods potentially offered us by the environment. This line of reasoning is re-enforced by empirical research which has demonstrated that differences in age, gender, cultural background and socio-economic status influence a person’s relationship with green space. This suggests that the planning and design of green spaces should focus not only on provision, accessibility and distribution, but on design interventions that complement proximity by enticing people to use green spaces to enhance health and well-being. It is to this challenge that the UCD Eco-Health Project is responding.
In responding to the Conference theme of ‘Disruption and Transgressions’, a clear recognition of the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of the health-environment relationship was identified by all of the speakers in the ‘Healthy Natures’ session. The contributions to the session were notable for the diverse research methods used to explore health-nature interactions, from qualitative walk-along interviews to modelling and mapping to capture GBI and health associations, spatial equity in GI distribution and theoretical considerations employing an ‘opportunities’ approach. A particular theme identified was the potential variation in the nature-health association depending on user characteristics (health, socio-demographics) and GI proximity and quality/character. As such a blurring of disciplinary boundaries across space, society and environment was clearly identified.
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