This study examined the association between exposure to varying concentrations of nature and adolescents' mood. While previous research documents connections to nature and mental health, many such studies focused on adults and/or were conducted in artificially-controlled settings. This study was designed to address some unanswered questions by focusing on the exact places where adolescents visit as well as their street-level experiences with nature in every day settings.
Over 150 adolescents from four metropolitan areas in Illinois responded to school-wide invitations to participate in this study. Their participation included wearing a GPS tracking device, keeping an activity diary, and completing an online questionnaire assessing mood over a four-consecutive day period. The researchers calculated the concentration of nature participants were exposed to each day by using Google Street View images at the locations they visited. The on-line questionnaire – an adapted version of the Profile of Mood States scale -- evaluated both an enduring mood state (in the past week) and current mood (transient feelings). The researchers also collected and analyzed information regarding possible confounding variables: individual control variables (demographic and socio-economic information, automobile access, and dog ownership) and day-by-day level control variables (day of week, total free time, total TV time, total physical activity time, and number of activities during the day).
In analyzing the data, the researchers used multi-level modeling (a form of statistical analysis) to reduce the impact of self-selection bias. They found significant associations between the concentration of nature and daily mood, even after controlling for both intra-individual and inter-individual level confounding variables. Results showed that the greener the environments the adolescents were exposed to on a daily basis, the better their mood states. Additional findings indicated that the participants, on average, spent a little less than an hour outdoors every day, and that adolescents from low income families were exposed to places with lower concentrations of nature than the other adolescents. The relationship between concentration of nature on mood did not vary across ethnicity or socio-economic groups.
This research highlights the importance of nature in accessible public space beyond neighborhoods and suggests that exposure to nature may be an effective treatment for adolescents who experience mood disturbances and are at risk for other mental disorders. It also suggests that school and extracurricular schedules should be flexible enough to incorporate active free play in nature. Other researchers may find the methods used in this study (i.e., combining GPS tracking and environmental exposure assessment) helpful in examining human-landscape relationships.
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