Building Census Around Nature Deficit Disorder: Evaluating the Movement to Reconnect People with Nature

In the past 10 years, there’s been growing interest in the movement to ‘reconnect’ people with nature. Nature exposure has been linked to numerous benefits included improved immune functioning, enhanced sense of place, and increased likelihood of pro-environmental behavior. Simultaneously, the amount of time people –in particular children and young adults – spend in and with nature has decreased. A number of conferences, trainings, and other events have been held to discuss how to best overcome what journalist Richard Louv describes as ‘nature deficit disorder.’ Although strong efforts have been made to increase the diversity of people who come to these events, many event organizers want even more diversity in the groups (e.g. more young people, people of non-White ethnicity, policy makers, health professionals, and business owners) which attend these events and engage in discussions about this movement. We have begun evaluating the diverse perspectives different stakeholders have about these events in order to make them more salient, and inclusive, to diverse populations. In particular, we are investigating (1) what are different groups’ goals and desired outcomes for attending these events and participating in this movement, (2) what do different groups feel are the factors for success for this movement, and (3) to what extent do different groups think this movement is achieving these goals and focusing on these factors for success?

The Technology of Healing: Using Virtual Reality to Systematically Test the Health Benefits of Nature Exposures

Housed withing the Virtual Reality & Nature (VRN) Lab, we are conducting an exciting line of research on the physiological and psychological responses to simulated nature exposure. Many studies that examine the health benefits of nature exposure in outdoor environments use generalized notions of ‘nature.’ As a result, we know relatively little about what specific aspects of nature (e.g. bird songs, fresh air, open sky, trees and other vegetation) lead to which health outcomes (e.g. increased physical activity, immunological functioning, happiness, and well-being). One of the reasons for this problem is the difficulty with running scientifically rigorous experiments in natural environments. Virtual reality provides an opportunity to empirically test theories about why nature is good for people. For example, we can expose participants to virtual park settings with differing levels of species richness and forest stratification – or virtual office settings with windows of natural scenes with and without other sensory inputs (e.g. bird songs from recordings, air movement from fans, smells found in nature simulated from scent machines, and sunlight from full-spectrum light bulbs) – and test for differences between groups. We are currently examining the extent to which virtual reality causes similar psychological and physiological responses in people compared to ‘real’ nature experiences. These preliminary studies will build an understanding of what virtual reality can, and cannot, tell us about how our findings translate to ‘real’ exposure to nature.