This Research Topic is the second volume of the One Health series. Please find the volume one "One Health: The Well-being Impacts of Human-nature Relationships"
here.
Now more than ever, there is a need to be working together across disciplines and across oceans to understand, tackle and overcome some of the greatest global challenges of human history – climate change and the impact on planetary and human wellbeing (One Health), and the global mental health crisis which is being exacerbated by Covid-19. There is a vital need to improve people’s connection to nature and improve pro-environmental behavior.
There is growing evidence from fields such as public health, architecture, ecology, landscape, forestry, psychology, sport science, psychiatry, and geography suggesting that nature enhances psychological health and wellbeing. Despite the number of studies showing improvements in psychological health and wellbeing through nature-based physical activities or feelings of connection to nature, the exact role and influence of the natural environment in this process is still rather unclear. Crucially, we need to understand more about how we can both enhance well-being through nature exposure and experiences, and become stewards of nature, working toward protecting it more effectively, and allowing nature to also flourish—developing a closer, connected relationship with the rest of the natural world. Despite the breadth of evidence, nature-based solutions remain inexplicably absent from the dominant models of health and health behavior change.
In the first volume of this work, two main areas of future research were identified. Firstly, that to maximize the opportunities for both humans and nature to thrive, further research is needed to understand how the human-nature relationship works and following on from this, how best to improve the human-nature relationship. Secondly, there is an urgent need to find ways to improve the human-nature relationship through interventions, campaigns, activities, curricula, green infrastructure and urban design. Such research should go beyond understanding to application, creating accessible and effective tools for practitioners from all aspects of human-environment interaction.
In this second volume, we are interested in gaining a greater depth of insight into the areas of research stated above, but also want to move beyond these areas and expand the research gaze to explore what supports, undermines, and will perpetuate the One Health movement. We therefore welcome authors from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives. Alongside many other disciplines, psychology has a responsibility to work in depth and breadth to deliver on this agenda. We hope the outcomes of this volume will help prompt further research in the area and inform international efforts regarding the One Health agenda.
This Research Topic aims to assemble innovative ideas and research from a wide set of disciplines with the purpose of providing an interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary foundation to our understanding and necessary action in relation to human and planetary wellbeing.
We are particularly interested in exploring the following themes:
• Research that takes an interdisciplinary approach to human and planetary wellbeing (e.g., anthropology and sociology, or education and policy, or climate science and psychology, or ecology and engineering, or public health and geography);
• Research that identifies how the human-nature relationship works;
• Research that explores how best to improve the human-nature relationship and/or human and planetary wellbeing;
• Research that identifies prevention, intervention and/ or design strategies that improve human and planetary wellbeing;
• Research that explores what supports, undermines, and will perpetuate the One Health movement;
• Theoretical concepts that cross disciplines and aim to provide a fuller understanding of human and planetary wellbeing.
We are welcoming the following types of articles: Original Research, Review Articles, Case Studies, Perspective, Opinion, and Commentary Articles