Urban woodlands and wellbeing

Photo: Robert Gordon University

Could improving local woodlands help address Scotland’s mental health challenge?

Scotland faces a significant and growing mental health challenge. Around one in eight people globally live with a mental health condition, and here in Scotland communities experiencing poverty and deprivation tend to bear the heaviest burden. At the same time, Scotland has a rich natural environment — including urban woodlands sitting on the doorsteps of many of its communities. New research from our team at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow suggests that targeted improvements to these local woodlands could meaningfully reduce poor mental health, particularly for those living in disadvantaged areas.

The research

Our study investigated whether a programme of urban woodland improvements — called Woods In and Around Towns (WIAT) and funded by Scottish Forestry — had a measurable effect on the mental health of people living nearby. The WIAT scheme targeted woodlands in or near Scotland’s most deprived communities, improving physical access through new pathways, signage, and entrance features, and running community engagement events such as family fun days and workshops to encourage local people to make use of them.

To measure mental health, we used NHS Scotland prescription records — specifically, records of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication — for over 129,000 Scottish adults tracked across five years, from 2012 to 2016. These records were linked to data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study and to information on the locations of WIAT woodlands across Scotland. This gave us one of the largest and most detailed datasets ever assembled to examine the relationship between greenspace interventions and mental health.

What did we find?

A key finding from the research was that people living within 800 metres — roughly a 10-minute walk — of a WIAT-improved woodland were significantly less likely to be prescribed antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication during periods when they lived close to such woodlands, compared with periods when they lived further away.

Crucially, this comparison was made by following same individuals over time. Rather than simply comparing different groups of people, we tracked how prescription patterns changed for individuals as their proximity to improved woodlands changed — either because they moved home or because a nearby woodland received WIAT funding. This approach gives us much greater confidence that the woodland improvements — rather than other differences between people or places — were driving the reduction in prescriptions.

In practical terms, people living near an improved woodland were around 10% less likely to be prescribed antidepressants and around 6% less likely to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication. Given that these medications are prescribed to many thousands of people across Scotland each year, reductions of this scale could have substantial implications for both individual wellbeing and NHS costs.

Why does this matter?

This research matters for several reasons. First, it offers some of the most robust evidence to date that investing in local greenspace — particularly woodland — can deliver measurable public health benefits. Previous studies in this area have often relied on small samples, short follow-up periods, or crude measures of vegetation that fail to capture the quality or accessibility of natural spaces. Our study used objective, real-world health data at national scale, tracked over five years.

Second, the findings have direct relevance for health inequalities. The WIAT programme was specifically designed to target Scotland’s most deprived communities — areas that have historically had poorer access to quality greenspace and higher rates of poor mental health. Our results suggest that relatively modest, targeted investments in local woodland quality can begin to address this inequality, delivering meaningful mental health benefits to those who need them most.

Third, the study demonstrates the wider value of Scotland’s administrative data infrastructure. By securely linking data across the Scottish Longitudinal Study, NHS Scotland, and Scottish Forestry, we were able to conduct research at a scale and level of rigour that would simply not have been possible using conventional survey methods. This points to broader opportunities for Scotland’s rich national data assets to support research with real policy impact.

What next?

This research makes a compelling case for integrating environmental investment into Scotland’s broader public health strategy. Woodland improvements are relatively low-cost, can be delivered at scale, and sit comfortably alongside existing health interventions, offering preventive benefits — helping keep people well, rather than treating illness after it develops — alongside wider environmental and community gains.

Programmes such as WIAT should be recognised not only as environmental or forestry policy, but as public health policy in their own right. The evidence is clear: improving the woodlands on people’s doorsteps can make a real and measurable difference to how they feel. Scottish Forestry has over 20 years of experience delivering WIAT, so good practice can be shared with others responsible for managing woodland and green space.

You can read more about the research in our paper published in Lancet Planetary Health. The work was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ES/V002457/1) and supported by staff at Scottish Forestry.

Professor Jamie Pearce FAcSS FRSE FRSA is Dean of Postgraduate Research, College of Science & Engineering and Chair in Health Geography, School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh

17 September 2026