Outdoors as a Health Solution

Overview

Spending time outdoors is a critical health behavior – access to the outdoors offers countless health benefits across all ages, activities, and regions. Some of these benefits include improved cognitive function, reduced stress and anger, increased physical activity, and better relationship-building in children. However, most Americans currently spend very little time outside, with communities of color and low-income populations far more likely to live in neighborhoods with little to no access to nature. States are championing the outdoors as a health solution and seeking to make outdoor access more equitable across holistic health models, physical activity, mental wellbeing, school and schoolyard access, childhood wellbeing, greener neighborhoods, outdoor careers, and a safer outdoors. The Outdoors as a Health Solution Briefing Book examines the human health benefits of time outdoors and the policy options for states to access these benefits across nine distinct categories.