Prof. Catharine Ward Thompson gave a speech at last years FOLAR annual symposium on Ecological Public Health – the future of salutogenic landscapes, which is now available to view online.

The direction Catharine Ward Thompson takes in her research is based on salutogenesis, an approach to human health that examines the factors contributing to the promotion and maintenance of physical and mental well-being rather than disease. Having the types of environment that support good health makes much better economic and cost effective sense for public health. Landscape architecture and management can do a lot to support people in good health through planning, designing and managing the outdoor environment.

Green space is eugenic – it is associated with reducing the difference in health and life expectancy between the most economically deprived people and those better off. There is a need to prove the link between landscape and improved health, and also to determine the mechanisms behind access to green space and health. And this is what Catharine Ward Thompson quietly shares with us here. A lifetime’s research and collaborations with others looking at different age groups, over different time periods and their interaction with a range of landscapes reveals many exciting conclusions, instinctively known and understood by Paxton and Olmsted and Geddes and many others, and here based on peer reviewed evidence. There is huge opportunity with this to fight for and protect the role of landscape anew.