Innovative Approaches to Researching Landscape and Health ─ Open Space: People Space 2

Despite our increasing longevity, modern lifestyles have become associated with a number of health problems. Our work, leisure and home activities are becoming more sedentary, our eating habits encourage obesity and our lack of physical exercise, combined with stress from urban living, result in increasing levels of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and mental illness. With such pressures on public health, we need to understand better how interaction with the outdoor environment might impact or improve health.

This book addresses the growing interest in salutogenic environments - those that support healthy lifestyles and promote well-being - and the particular need for appropriate methods to research the links between landscape and health. Drawing on multidisciplinary approaches from environmental psychology, health sciences, urban design, landscape architecture and horticulture, it goes beyond the conventional theories and methods to explore what new possibilities might offer.

The authors are international leaders in their fields, brought together by the directors of the OPENspace research centre, Edinburgh. Their unique contribution is a resource to help the research, policy and practice community identify key issues, and commission, undertake and apply research in landscape and health. It also contributes to framing research questions and developing appropriate methods to address the urgent needs for a healthy society.

Catharine Ward Thompson is Research Professor of Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh. She is Director of OPENspace based at Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot-Watt University and directs the College's Landscape Architecture PhD programme.
Peter Aspinall is Associate Director of OPENspace Research Centre and is an environmental psychologist. He is currently an Honorary Fellow of Edinburgh University and Emeritus Professor of Vision and Environment at Heriot-Watt University.
Simon Bell is Associate Director of OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art and a forester and landscape architect. He is also Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia.