RECETAS at the #2025 EPH Conference: Advancing Nature-Based and Community-Centred Public Health

At the European Public Health Conference (EPH2025) in Helsinki, the RECETAS Project actively contributed to key discussions on nature-based interventions, mental health, social prescribing, and loneliness, highlighting the critical connections between scientific evidence, real-world implementation, and public health policy.

The team, including Jill Litt, Laura Coll-Planas, and Annika Kolster, presented early findings from the RECETAS study.

Our presentations showcased the co-creation of nature-based interventions and emerging insights into loneliness and social connection, exploring how nature-based social prescribing worked across six diverse contexts for people experiencing loneliness throughout the lifecourse. It was an honor to share the stage with colleagues advancing research in nature-based social prescribing, planetary health, biodiversity, and mental health.

The RECETAS team also participated in three dedicated scientific and policy sessions focused on loneliness and global social prescribing solutions. These presentations addressed conceptual frameworks, the risks of medicalising loneliness, and findings from six ‘Friends in Nature’ intervention studies. Highlights included our adaptation of the #circleoffriends model, integration into a socialprescribing framework, use of nature as an activator of change, and application of processevaluation methods to assess protocol #fidelity. Discussions reinforced the importance of complex-intervention science to understand how and why change occurs across different cultural, social, and health system contexts.

A warm thank you to all EPH25 colleagues, speakers, organisers, and networks – including the EUPHA Environment & Health Section, Folkhälsan, THL, and all contributors – for making this week so inspiring and memorable.

Throughout the conference, whether during nature walks, academic discussions, roundtables, or informal conversations, we were reminded of the power of collaboration, curiosity, and shared commitment to improving population health and wellbeing.