Professor Mitchell will talk about the theory and evidence for why spending time in nature is good for our mental health.
Rich Mitchell is Professor of Health and Environment and leads the Places and Health Programme at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Over time, he became more interested in how health can be protected than in what damages it, and in how social and geographical gaps in health could be addressed. He subsequently developed an extensive programme of research on the benefits of urban green spaces for health and is the author and co-author of multiple key studies in this field. Rich continues to develop research on how change in the state, management and/or use of natural and other neighbourhood environments can positively affect population health, and in the methodologies required to know about, measure and evaluate such change including simulation studies. Nature is the UK Mental Health Foundation Awareness Week theme for 2021