title: Exploring perceptions of health and the environment: a qualitative study of Thames Chase Community Forest.
abstract: This paper explores perceptions of health, the environment, and the relationships between them, in a programme of community forestry. Drawing on qualitative data generated within a multi-disciplinary project, the paper discusses the difficulties of conceptualising the key variables utilised in research on the links between green space and health. Health and the environment were not discrete entities that could be mapped on to one another, but fluid and contested concepts. A simple model of the 'impact' of environment on health could not do justice to the ways in which 'use' of outdoor space is a process, not an event.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK. ruthpinder@yahoo.co.uk
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pinder
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kessel
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Green
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grundy
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks; D004739:England; D004782:Environmental Health; D016468:Forestry; D006801:Humans; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D012423:Rural Health