Importance of Greenery during COVID – Biophilic Design does it Again!

Dzhambov and teammates probed links between the presence of indoor and outdoor greenery and the wellbeing of people during the COVID pandemic.

They found via data collected using a survey that “Greenery experienced both indoors and outdoors supported mental health. . . . We employed two self-reported measures of greenery experienced indoors (number of houseplants in the home and proportion of exterior greenery visible from inside the home) and two measures of greenery experienced outdoors (presence/absence of a domestic garden and availability of neighborhood greenery). . . . The relative abundance of greenery visible from the home or in the neighborhood was associated with reduced depressive/anxiety symptoms and lower depression/anxiety rates. Having more houseplants or a garden was also associated with some of these markers of mental health. . . . [Study participants] who spent most of their time at home during the COVID-19 epidemic experienced better mental health when exposed to more greenery.

Our findings support the idea that exposure to greenery may be a valuable resource during social isolation in the home.”

Angel Dzhambov, Peter Lercher, Matthew Browning, Drozdstoy Stoyanov, Nadezhda Petrova, Stoyan Novakov, and Donka Dimitrova.  “Does Greenery Experienced Indoors and Outdoors Provide an Escape and Support Mental Health During the COVID-19 Quarantine?” Environmental Research, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110420