Tackling Loneliness through nature-based solutions: at RECETAS, we take #RandomActsofConnection outside

From June 10 to 16, we celebrate Loneliness Awareness Week, which aims at raising awareness about loneliness and its impact on mental health and wellbeing. This annual campaign is organized by the Marmalade Trust, a UK-based charity whose goal is to tackle loneliness and social isolation.

The RECETAS project is happy to support the Marmalade Trust as our actions and research fully aligns with the spirit of Loneliness Awareness Week. Thanks to this initiative, people get to talk about these issues, participating in reducing the stigma associated with feeling lonely, encouraging others to talk about it and connecting us together. The RECETAS Project indeed studies the connections between loneliness and activities done within nature in urban and peri-urban areas, with six pilot cities in which this activities are carried out and tested.

Throughout Loneliness Awareness Week, diverse activities are organized to promote the message that everyone can feel lonely, because of a variety of different factors, and that breaking out of the vicious circle of silence is crucial.

Each year, Loneliness Awareness Week features a specific theme. This year, the focus is on Random Acts of Connection. The idea is simple: encouraging people to increase the everyday moments of connection that make us feel better and less lonely. These connections can take many forms: having coffee breaks with co-workers, hosting a street party, chatting with someone in a queue, or simply calling a friend to catch up….

Our methodology, the “Friends in Nature” methodology, is an extension of the Finnish “Circle of Frends methodology”, and aims at reducing loneliness through nature-based activities in groups (gardening, species observation, walking in forests, etc).

The end goal of the project is to provide tangible scientific data on the matter but also to raise awareness among policy makers in order to influence policies in urban planning, environment, social issues and mental health in the right direction.

RECETAS is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 program.
To find more information on the RECETAS project, check our website: https://www.recetasproject.eu/
To learn more about Loneliness Awareness Week and the Marmalade Trust, and to get involved: https://www.lonelinessawarenessweek.org/about
#RandomActsOfConnection

• 28 February 2023, at 11am
  
• Online
  

The webinar – organised by the HEART project, member of the European Urban Health Cluster– will explore the impacts of urban environment on health outcomes at both collective and individual level. Panellists will address questions such as ‘How are urban policies currently designed?’, ‘Which evidence do policy-makers need to take decisions about urban planning and infrastructure?’, ‘How can we ensure universal access to blue and green spaces?’.

« In 2021, 75% of the total population of the European Union lived in urban areas. Urban areas can have both positive and negative effects on human health. Citizens living in urban areas have better access to care facilities but are also exposed to higher infrastructure density, heavier air pollution, and increased stress. Cities whose urban planning policies are steered by health priorities are obviously more advanced in disease prevention and wellbeing promotion. There is also growing evidence that blue and green spaces have beneficial and restorative effects on mental and physical health. The Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of contact with blue and green spaces to reduce stress, carry out physical activity, and provide opportunities for social interaction. Expecting further increase in the urban population in the coming decades, we should reflect on what kind of urban policy design will make current and future generations thrive and if universal access to blue and green spaces in the city can help to reduce health inequalities by their positive impact on wellbeing. »

> More information & registration

Local news coming soon

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Local news coming soon

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[CATALAN]
Reunió informativa – Projecte RECETAS a Nou Barris 

• Data : Divendre 23 Setembre 2022
• Lloc: Centre Ton i Guida, C/ Romaní 6. Roquetes, Barcelona.

Li agradaria participar en activitats amb altres persones i estar en contacte amb la natura?
Vine a la reunió informativa per participar en les activitats dirigides a persones que se sentin soles: 1 sessió de 2 hores cada setmana en grups reduïts. Activitat gratuïtat.

https://www.toniguida.org/

Kaisu Pitkäla, PI and professor emerita at the University of Helsinki, Finland

The RECETAS partnership is rich in interdisciplinarity and expertise on topics related to mental health, loneliness and nature-based solutions.
How do our partners work on loneliness? How are they involved in RECETAS? Each month, one or more of our experts answer our questions!

🎤 Kaisu, can you briefly introduce the organization you work for?

I am working as a PI and professor emerita for the University of Helsinki. University of Helsinki is the largest of the universities of Finland and it has been ranked among the 100 best universities in the world in respect to research. It has over 20 000 students including 800 students at the medical faculty. Unit of General Practice has developed and tested several treatment models for older people including rehabilitation model for lonely older people.

🎤 Why is loneliness a public health issue? What is your approach to loneliness at the University of Helsinki and in your personal research?

I have explored the concept loneliness among older people since 2000 when our research group published an article in Lancet concerning the predictive value of loneliness on cognitive decline, disabilities and mortality. These findings have been repeated in many studies thereafter. Loneliness is harmful even at the end of life in nursing homes where it is a health and mortality risk.

We developed a psychosocial group rehabilitation model for lonely older people “Circle of Friends” in collaboration with The Finnish Association for the Welfare of Older People. This randomized controlled trial showed that Circle of Friends intervention improves older lonely people’s wellbeing and health-related quality of life, their cognition, self-rated health. In addition, it reduced their use of health and social services and their mortality. The people in Circle of Friends groups made more often new friends that the controls. In addition, about 60% of their groups continued on their own after the official study was over. The Finnish Association for the Welfare of Older People has continued disseminating Circle of Friends rehab model to 100 communities in Finland, trained about 1100 group facilitators and nearly 12 000 lonely older people have participated in the groups. It has retained the essential elements of the original model.

We have also explored loneliness in our qualitative studies by interviewing how people can feel lonely in a crowd and how emotionally devastating it can be. We also qualitatively explored the Circle of Friends model in detail in our trial and found the essential elements of it to disseminate it to other settings. We have disseminated successfully the model to people with dementia, people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities as well as for deaf people.

🎤 How are you involved in the RECETAS project? What are you working on at the moment?

I am the person in charge (PI) of the trial in Helsinki. I am working for RECETAS: making contracts with assisted living facilities, giving information in the facilities, screening participants in them, supervising four study nurses and participating in the training of the facilitators. I make applications for research funding. I am currently supervising six PhD students and I have three other research groups besides RECETAS (Nutrition, Medicines and Oral Health in Long-Term Care, Helsinki Aging Study and Frailty and Nutrition).

👉 Find more about the research activity of Dr Kaisu Pitkälä here.

Webinar: Strengthening Social Connectedness: Creating Clarity on Key Concepts

• 26th JANUARY 2022
  

• Online

What is social connectedness, and how is it different from social isolation and loneliness? How does connectedness impact our health, and why is it so critically important? As we continue to work our way through the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are asking these questions about our relationships with others. As social distancing and quarantines forced apart in ways few have previously experienced, we gained a new appreciation for our connectedness – and a concern about the future from a social support perspective.

In the first webinar in the series, “Strengthening Social Connectedness to Promote Health and Well-Being”, Visible Network Labs is building a foundation and creating clarity on some key concepts and tenets of social connectedness research and network science. With guests to share unique perspectives on why this work matters, you’ll leave with new tools, terms, and ideas to use in your work.

This webinar is hosted by Visible Network Labs, a partner of the RECETAS project. Visible Network Labs is a technology and service startup that uses network science to map and visualize the relationships and systems that impact health and well-being to strengthen social connectedness and collaboration.

> More information here

Job Offer (Doctoral Candidate) for RECETAS

Institute of Public Health, Medical Decision Making and Health Technology Assessment, UMIT – University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall in Tirol/Innsbruck, Austria is seeking a

DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN PUBLIC HEALTH/
EPIDEMIOLOGY/ SOCIAL PRESCRIBING

to contribute to our project RECETAS (“Re-imagining Environments for Connection and Engagement: Testing Actions for Social Prescribing in Natural Spaces”) co-financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Job offer is available here.

MOOC NATURE FOR CITY LIFE

The Sud-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region and the Population, Environment and Development Laboratory of Aix-Marseille-University are reopening the

MOOC Nature for City LIFE

« Nature in the city and adaptation to climate change » – initial session

Last opening of the initial session of the MOOC before the end of the Nature for City LIFE project which will end in August 2022, so take advantage of it !

Courses start on 2 November in 5 languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish and German.

Three main themes will be covered, at the rate of one theme per week to acquire skills on :
– knowledge of the different forms of nature in the city, their functioning and the associated ecosystem services
– the state of the art, techniques for integrating and managing nature in urban projects to improve resilience to climate change
– understanding urban strategies for resilience to climate change.

Go to the following link to start: REGISTER FOR MOOC

To learn more about the Nature For City Life project, visit: http://www.nature4citylife.eu/en/