The Labelling-Evidence Mismatch in Mental Health Promoting NbS Projects: A Global Review of Case Studies

Abstract

Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly promoted as beneficial to mental health, yet many urban interventions rely on intuitive claims without evidence. In this review, 2.718 NbS projects from all around the world were screened across eight extensive repositories, using a three-level structure to assess the mental health relevance. Out of 1.044 projects which referenced health and wellbeing, 245 addressed mental health explicitly, but only 13 claimed to monitor the outcomes. With further investigation, only 3 were found to have documented evidence of mental health benefits, such as clinical tracking and wellbeing surveys. These findings shed light on the scale of the issue of mislabelling and misclassifying NbS, which can result in undermining the role of nature in contributing to people’s mental health, and result in limiting the integration of NbS into mental health strategies. There is need for clarity around mental health promotion mechanisms and their links to specific NbS and their public descriptions, supported with the monitoring tools.

Implications: It is important that urban designers and planners consider mental health from the conception of the projects, including design solutions and monitoring tools that are known to benefit users’ psychological wellbeing.