Amplifying Health Through Community Gardens: A Framework for Advancing Multicomponent, Behaviorally Based Neighborhood Interventions

The article presents a framework for understanding the relationship between community garden participation, and the myriad ways gardens and participation lead to emotional, social, and health impacts. Existing empirical research relating community gardens to health behaviors, such as physical activi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current environmental health reports 2016-09, Vol.3 (3), p.302-312
Main Authors: Alaimo, Katherine, Beavers, Alyssa W., Crawford, Caroline, Snyder, Elizabeth Hodges, Litt, Jill S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior Therapy
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Chronic illnesses
Community
Community involvement
Community Participation
Cost control
Diet
Emotions
Environmental Health
Exercise
Female
Food
Food security
Gardening
Gardening - methods
Gardens
Gardens & gardening
Health
Health behavior
Health promotion
Health Status
Humans
Intervention
Low income groups
Male
Medicine/Public Health
Mental health
Neighborhoods
Participation
Pharmacology/Toxicology
Physical activity
Public health
Residence Characteristics
Sales
Section Editor
Skills
the Environment
the Environment (KE Nachman
Topical Collection on Food
Urban Health
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Description
Summary:The article presents a framework for understanding the relationship between community garden participation, and the myriad ways gardens and participation lead to emotional, social, and health impacts. Existing empirical research relating community gardens to health behaviors, such as physical activity and diet, and longer-term chronic disease-related outcomes is summarized. The research areas discussed include the effects of community garden participation on individual, social, emotional, and environmental processes; health behaviors including diet and physical activity; and health outcomes such as self-rated health, obesity, and mental health. Other mechanisms through which community gardens may affect population health are described. Applying a multitheoretical lens to explore associations between community garden participation and health enables us to delineate key aspects of gardening that elicit positive health behaviors and multifactorial health assets that could be applied to designing other types of health interventions.
ISSN:2196-5412
2196-5412
DOI:10.1007/s40572-016-0105-0