The group was founded in 2020 by Matt and Hannah.
Exploring the role of nature in mental wellbeing
We are a collective of mostly doctoral-level psychologists and researchers who have a shared interest in improving treatment and prevention of mental health problems. We are an apolitical research group focussed on the meaning and potential benefit of natural environments to human health and wellbeing, both in clinical and community groups of people.
Prevention as well as Treatment
Although treatments for common mental health problems do exist we are unlikely to ever have enough resources to treat everyone in need.
Personalised: What works for whom?
Efficacy for both treatment and prevent interventions could be enhanced by tailoring the intervention to meet the needs of the individual.
Understanding how nature can be beneficial
There are likely to be myriad ways in which nature can be beneficial in improving wellbeing but these are not certain yet. Some of the candidate mechanisms include: stress reduction, attention restoration, exercise, becoming more mindful and reducing negative thinking such as worry and rumination.
Long-term change across the lifecourse
To understand change in wellbeing and connection with nature we need to study these two factors closely over long periods of time at different ages and stages of life. To achieve this we need more longitudinal research studies.
Rowan growth
The growth trajectory of the Rowan group in graphs.