READ: “1 in 4 Australians is lonely. Quality green spaces in our cities offer a solution.” (The Conversation)
By Xiaoqi Feng (UNSW Sydney) & Thomas Astell-Burt (University of Wollongong Australia)
One in four Australian adults feel lonely, and the impacts can be dire. Loneliness increases our risks of depression, diabetes, dementia, self-harm and suicide. But likening it to a disease and proposals to treat it with a pill miss the point: we’ve been building for loneliness over many decades and decision-makers have been asleep at the wheel. … We have lost the people-friendly streets that we once used for regularly gathering, playing and celebrating with neighbours. … If the determinants of loneliness are largely environmental, so too must be the solutions. Yet we hear so little about this. …
But how can green space reduce loneliness? That’s the focus of our new review of studies from around the world. Two-thirds of the studies found green space potentially protected people against loneliness.
