Project Aims and Methods
We are exploring how green spaces in Blackpool may activate psychological, social, and environmental mechanisms, such as curiosity, social belonging, and purpose, to support mental health and wellbeing while fostering connections between people and the planet.
To produce meaningful, community-focused insights, we are sharing expertise through participatory mapping and conversations, co-creating innovative approaches and uncovering opportunities for mutual learning and collaboration.
Collaborators
The collaboration between Oxford and Blackpool leverages the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre’s Flourishing and Wellbeing research platform, and builds upon Blackpool’s Research Ready Communities pilot to co-create evidence on how nature-based activities enhance mental health and wellbeing in groups under-represented in research.
We are collaborating with Blackpool Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC), Blackpool Researching Together team and BoingBoing.
Importance
We aim to understand how green and blue spaces may activate key mechanisms for mental health, wellbeing and overall flourishing of human and planetary life. Communities under-represented in research can face barriers in accessing nature. By uncovering these barriers, we can eventually design inclusive, accessible, effective, and preventive interventions that address the intertwined challenges of human and planetary health and wellbeing.
Key takeaways and applications
As an outcome of our collaboration with Blackpool, we have issued a call for seed funding to the co-research community. Our E-Co-Flourishing PPI lead has been invited to serve as the academic lead for this initiative.
The funding application will focus on developing a residents’ map of Blackpool, showcasing places that contribute to mental health and wellbeing, and potentially informing local interventions, urban planning, and community-driven initiatives. The findings may also provide transferable insights for designing inclusive, evidence-based, nature-based programmes to support mental health in other communities that have been under-represented in research.
The deadline for submission is March 2025.
Key Researchers:
Dr Katrin Wilhelm, OH BRC Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme
