Version 1
: Received: 13 September 2022 / Approved: 14 September 2022 / Online: 14 September 2022 (12:08:02 CEST)
How to cite:
Taczanowska, K.; Tansil, D.; Wilfer, J.; Jiricka-Pürrer, A. Green and Healthy —Age Effects in Use and Perception of Urban Green Spaces and their Impact on Personal Health and Well-being during COVID-19 Pandemic. Preprints2022, 2022090209. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0209.v1
Taczanowska, K.; Tansil, D.; Wilfer, J.; Jiricka-Pürrer, A. Green and Healthy —Age Effects in Use and Perception of Urban Green Spaces and their Impact on Personal Health and Well-being during COVID-19 Pandemic. Preprints 2022, 2022090209. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0209.v1
Taczanowska, K.; Tansil, D.; Wilfer, J.; Jiricka-Pürrer, A. Green and Healthy —Age Effects in Use and Perception of Urban Green Spaces and their Impact on Personal Health and Well-being during COVID-19 Pandemic. Preprints2022, 2022090209. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0209.v1
APA Style
Taczanowska, K., Tansil, D., Wilfer, J., & Jiricka-Pürrer, A. (2022). Green and Healthy —Age Effects in Use and Perception of Urban Green Spaces and their Impact on Personal Health and Well-being during COVID-19 Pandemic. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0209.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Taczanowska, K., Jacqueline Wilfer and Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer. 2022 "Green and Healthy —Age Effects in Use and Perception of Urban Green Spaces and their Impact on Personal Health and Well-being during COVID-19 Pandemic" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202209.0209.v1
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic drew public attention back to the living conditions related to housing, access to green areas in close neighbourhood and nearby recreation. Several studies confirm that visiting green spaces improved the health and wellbeing in times of crisis. This representative study for the metropolitan area of Vienna, Austria’s capital, confirms the high relevance of contact with nature, particularly for citizens to cope with the negative consequences and perceived stress, anxiety, nervousness and many other negative symptoms experienced during the health crisis. It highlights the importance of nearby smaller but also medium to large scale green areas in cities for health and wellbeing of the population. Moreover, it specifically adds novel insights on age effects in use and perception of urban green spaces during COVID-19 pandemic. The online panel survey (n=1012) was conducted in summer 2021. In order to obtain a representative sample reflective of the population’s characteristics, a (stratified) random sample was selected by applying the quota method. The objective was to obtain a sample which represented gender, age and regional distribution of the population of the City of Vienna as well as the immediately surrounding local communities. Interestingly, particularly young people spent more time outside in green areas during the pandemic, discovered novel spaces for the first time and stated a high relevance of contact with nature for their wellbeing. Elderly people above sixty five, on the contrary, stayed more frequently at home. Significant differences are visible between the age groups also with regard to negative symptoms experienced in case of restricted access to green areas due to strict pandemic measures such as lockdowns and quarantine. All age groups, however, similarly acknowledged the importance of green areas for their physical, mental and emotional health in general during the pandemic.
Keywords
Urban green areas; health; urban health; emotional health; physical health; well-being; nature; environmental medicine; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2 pandemic; Vienna; Austria, environmental perception; pandemic; human nature relationship; recreation; age
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
