Changes in Well-Being Immediately After Urban Park Visit

Urban parks have been recognized as key neighborhood places that provide residents with opportunities to experience nature and engage in various activities. Through contact with the natural environment and engagement in health-promoting and/or social and recreational activities in parks, users experience physical and mental health benefits such as stress reduction and recovery from mental fatigue. A growing body of evidence suggests that individuals who engage in a short-term visit (e.g., less than a couple hours) to an urban park also experience physiological and psychological restorative benefits (McMahan, & Estes, 2015). However, it is unclear whether the improvement in well-being after such a visit is associated to physical activity, to non-physical restorative activities such as social interaction, or a combination of different activities. The purpose of this study is to explore what factors associate to the improvement in subjective well-being (SWB) immediately after a short-term visit to a neighborhood urban park, and to determine the optimal park visit duration that can provide an improvement in SWB.

This study involved a one group pretest-posttest survey research design. Adult visitors of urban parks (convenience sampling) were approached by research assistants at park entrances or in the parking lot to provide information regarding study objectives and to seek consent to participate. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire of demographic information, measures related to SWB, to provide a saliva sample before they enter the park, and to wear an Actigraph accelerometer to record their level of physical activity while in the park. Research assistants waited at the entrance or the parking lot until the participant completed the park visit to collect the accelerometer, ask for completion of the same SWB measures, and provide another saliva sample as they did prior to their park visit. SWB was assessed using two standardized measures: the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), 5 items, and the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), 10 items (Diener, 1994). Cortisol (stress hormone) level in the saliva sample was determined.

Final data analysis is still in process at the time and results of salivary cortisol level analysis is pending. However, preliminary analysis of 94 visitors from three urban parks indicated that there was a significant improvement in SWB, PANAS and SWLS scores of park visitor participants from before to after their visit. The SWB scores collected prior to the park visit were bivariately associated with improvement in SWB scores after the park visit, whereas the SWLS scores were independently associated with improvement in SWLS scores after the park visit, controlling for the park and age. Mean activity intensity, which was estimated by dividing the number of steps recorded in the accelerometer by the amount of time spent in the park was not associated to the improvement in SWB scores after the park visit. In addition, using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, we identified that 20 minutes spent in the park indicated the highest probability for participants exhibiting improvement in SWB and life satisfaction after a park visit, and discriminated park visitors who exhibited improvement in SWB and life satisfaction from those who did not after the park visit.

This study supported that urban green space is associated with enhancement of SWB beyond being physically active in a natural environment as visit duration has also shown beneficial effects on the visitors’ mental health. It is recommended that design of the park space should attract visitors to stay for at least 20 minutes in the park.

References

Diener, E. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social Indicators Research, 31(2), 103-157. doi:10.1007/BF01207052

McMahan, E. A., & Estes, D. (2015). The effect of contact with natural environments on positive and negative affect: A meta-analysis. Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(6), 507-519. doi:10.1080/17439760.2014.994224