Access to Green Space in Disadvantaged Urban Communities: Evidence of Salutogenic Effects Based on Biomarker and Self-report Measures of Wellbeing

This paper describes two case studies from Scotland, UK, exploring links between access to green space, perceptions of and activities in green space, and health and quality of life. One study involved a natural experiment to study the effects of improvements to woodlands near a disadvantaged urban community, compared with a similar community without such interventions. The second study, a recent, innovative study for the Scottish Government, demonstrated use of a biomarker as a method for measuring the salutogenic effects of environmental settings such as green space, offering evidence of environment-body interactions within a real-world context of people's everyday lives.