Most people know that stopping to smell the roses can help us slow down and appreciate the small things, but did you know growing them can help relieve stress?
That's what Rachel Rosenberg Goldstein, an assistant professor of applied environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, has been researching for the past year and a half. She's looking at how gardening can help address two of the most significant public health challenges facing our nation: mental health challenges and food insecurity.
As a step forward for her research, Goldstein recently received the Health Information Outreach Award from the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) Region 1 for her project "Healthy Garden, Healthy You: Providing Information and Tools on Links Between Gardening and Human Health."
The Health Information Outreach Award supports projects that improve health information literacy and increase the public's ability to access health information. Goldstein's project will combine health information with gardening tools for community members in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, Maryland.
As part of the grant, she will host a webinar to share information about the mental health benefits of gardening and how to protect human health in the garden. In addition, Goldstein and her team will create virtual toolkits to share information on the health benefits of gardening.
This research is part of Goldstein's lab, Water Quality, Outreach, and Wellness (WOW) Laboratory. The WOW lab researches microbial water quality, the most effective ways to communicate about water quality, and the perceptions and behaviors related to water use, in addition to exploring the beneficial impacts of urban agriculture and gardening on health and wellness. Learn more about the WOW lab.
Developed resources reported in this press release are supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) under cooperative agreement number UG4LM013724. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.