Visiting green spaces, such as public parks, benefits physical and mental health, and overall wellbeing, new research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has shown.

According to the findings, even one visit to a green space per month offers health benefits.

While this research was carried out before the COVID-19 pandemic, the ESRI team believes that these findings have "even greater relevance now when daily exercise is one of the few activities that is allowed under current health restrictions".

The researchers carried out face-to-face interviews with over 1,000 adults living in urban areas. Participants were asked about their health and wellbeing, exercise routines and park visiting routines, as well as what kind of park designs they liked.

The researchers found that visits to green spaces were associated with positive health and wellbeing effects. In fact, such visits were linked with positive outcomes for general health, cardiovascular health, mental health and wellbeing.

"Most significantly, the health impacts are greatest at low visit levels, i.e. even those who visit just once a month can experience the benefits.

"For example, increasing the number of green space visits from zero to just once per month is associated with a four percentage point increase in the probability of experiencing good mental health and wellbeing, from 65% to 69%," they explained.

Furthermore, increasing the number of green space visits to eight times per month, i.e. twice a week, was associated with an additional seven percentage point increase in the probability of experiencing good mental health and wellbeing.

Meanwhile, the researchers also set out to examine what features within green spaces were likely to generate higher visiting rates.

They found that when it came to the landscape of public parks, people preferred a higher tree density and liked water features. However, the attributes that were most likely to attract more visitors were facilities such as exercise equipment, coffee shops and public toilets.

The researchers believe that these findings are important when it comes to the planning and design of green spaces.

"The finding on positive health status associated with visiting green spaces confirms in the Irish context well established international literature. The policy implications are both immediate and ongoing.

"Within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the results show the importance of maintaining access to green spaces for exercise. In the context of urban planning and new housing developments, it highlights the need for provision of green public spaces," the ESRI team said.

They noted that while the expansion of existing parks is probably not feasible in most cases, the internal landscape can be refigured.

"The changes that are likely to have the greatest impact on park visits are the addition of visitor facilities, which are often less expensive than landscape redesign," they added.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Landscape and Urban Planning.

*Pictured is the Wellington Monument in Dublin's Phoenix Park