Re-imagining Environments for Connection and Engagement: Testing Actions for Social Prescribing in Natural Spaces (RECETAS) addresses loneliness, a modifiable health condition that is known to shorten one's lifespan and may be as dangerous to one’s health as smoking or obesity. Loneliness knows no geographic, economic, cultural, and social boundaries and affects all age groups. For urban dwellers, nearby nature, with social structures, can improve health and mental well-being and reduce loneliness. Even under the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19, people need time in nature for its healing benefits and its role in allowing people to interact in nature. Investments in nature-based solutions (NBS) and green infrastructure (GI) that address rapid urbanization and its adverse consequences on environmental systems in our cities, can be harnessed for health and well-being even in times of health emergencies. RECETAS explores loneliness through a transdisciplinary lens, integrating social, behavioural, health and natural sciences, and is grounded in participatory principles. It uses RCTs and other epidemiologic, anthropological and health economic methods to test socially- and culturally-innovative nature based social prescribing (NBSP) in six cities worldwide. The approach aims to improve upon real-world policy and practice to reduce loneliness by connecting people experiencing loneliness with helping professionals and extensive investments in NBS and GI, while alleviating pressures on stressed health care systems. If successful, it will systematically reduce loneliness, promote and sustain vibrant, socially-connected communities, and reduce health inequalities by connecting to nature in meaningful ways.
RECETAS’s objectives:
1: Understand the patterns and experience of loneliness and NBS/GI to address it in cities
2: Develop and assess novel, participative, viable, and cost-effective solutions
3: Amplify the implementation of novel solutions worldwide