Journal
LANDSCAPE AND URBAN PLANNING
Volume 212, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104108
Keywords
Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS); Big five personality traits; COVID-19; Life satisfaction; Domestic gardens; Coronavirus
Categories
Funding
- Scottish Government National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Wellbeing
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This study compares the effects of green spaces on the well-being of garden owners and non-garden owners during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Results show that garden owners have higher life satisfaction and mental well-being than non-garden owners. Most participants associate positive meanings with private gardens and public green spaces, suggesting the importance of these spaces for well-being.
This study focuses on the effects of the use of green spaces on the self-reported well-being measures of life satisfaction and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare two distinct groups of people: garden owners and non-garden owners. We collected quantitative data and data from an open-ended question online from 495 people living in all regions of Germany in May 2020. To analyze our quantitative data, we used a combination of descriptive statistics and hierarchal regressions. Here, results indicated that garden owners had substantially greater life satisfaction and mental well-being than non-garden owners. Additionally, the two groups differed statistically significant in many socioeconomic factors (e.g., income, age, fear of job loss), in the context of time spent outside, as well as personality traits. Our analyses suggest that these differences are valuable for understanding differences between the two groups' self-reported well-being. To analyze the openended question, we followed the main steps of a qualitative content analysis. Here, we found that the vast majority of participants associated positive meanings (e.g., freedom and joy) with private gardens and public green spaces during the pandemic. Our findings have implications for policies to promote and support the design and use of public green spaces. Overall, our findings support governmental decisions in Germany (as elsewhere) to keep public green spaces open during the first wave of the outbreak of COVID-19, suggesting that green spaces provide valuable support for self-reported well-being in these difficult times of COVID-19 contagion.
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