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Giampier Guerrero-Villanueva, Giampier Dario, & Roszak Jonna

Go Green or You Will Wither: On the Role of Access to Quality Green Areas in the City and Our Well-Being

Contact at: gguerrero-villanueva@st.swps.edu.pl

Cities all over the world grow at a fast pace (Hunter, 2017). Many authors indicate a pressing need to develop a well-thought-out agenda of interdisciplinary research on the future of cities (Future of the Cities, 2016). Even though such issues as housing, city services, or economics are often prioritized, we should not forget that cities of the future will also need a lot of green space. Not only will this have obvious environmental benefits, but it may also enhance the well-being of city dwellers. Research indicates that exposure to natural stimuli may help reduce stress and improve our mental health (e.g., Martin et al., 2020, Marsell et al., 2020). This presentation includes preliminary data (ca. 52 persons) from a currently running cross-sectional study on the access to green areas and the well-being of inhabitants of the city of Lima, Peru. Among the factors we measured are quantity, quality, accessibility of green areas, and restorative quality, while the main DVs are well-being, understood as vitality (Ryan & Frederic, 1997) and life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985), and positive and negative affect. Preliminary results have not yet yielded any significant intercorrelations, while the study is still in progress. If, as assumed, access to nature may indeed safeguard us against negative well-being, those and similar results may serve to prepare guidelines for city authorities and decision-makers in the area of environmental care. Those may also inform psychosocial interventions targeting the well-being of people living in cities.

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