Social Prescribing through Primary Care: A Systematic Review of the Evidence

Background: In primary care, social prescribing (SP) is where a patient is referred to a “link worker”, who considers their needs and then “prescribes” or connects them to appropriate community-based resources and services. Recent policy and guidance in the UK has significantly expanded the provision of SP to improve patient health and wellbeing. Methods: This study conducted a systematic review of evidence for SP effectiveness and to report needs addressed, interventions provided, and behaviour change techniques employed. Inclusion criterion was patient referral from primary care to a SP link worker. Online databases were searched for studies published from February 2016 to July 2021. Searches were restricted to English language only. Risk of bias assessment and a narrative analysis were undertaken. Results: Eight studies were included. All studies reported some positive outcomes. There were weaknesses and limitations in study design and in reporting of results: a lack of comparative controls, short duration and single point follow-up, a lack of standardised assessments, missing data, and a failure to consider potential confounding factors. All studies had features which indicated a high risk of bias. Conclusion: Evidence for the value and positive impact of SP is accumulating, but evaluation design remains relatively weak. There is a need to improve evaluation through robust methodological design and the adoption of universal outcome measures and evaluation/analytical framework. SP should seek to assess patient wellbeing, self-management, and quality of lifeoutcomes systematically, and adopt behaviour change techniques to enable healthier lifestyles in the short and long term.

Spatiotemporal Analysis of COVID-19 Lockdown Impact on the Land Surface Temperatures of Different Land Cover Types in Louisiana

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a serious threat to life on the entire planet, necessitating the imposition of a lockdown mechanism that restricted people’s movements to stop the disease’s spread. This period experienced a decline in air pollution emissions and some environmental changes, offering a rare opportunity to understand the effects of fewer human activities on the earth’s temperature. Hence, this study compares the changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST) that were observed prior to the pandemic (March & April 2019) and during the pandemic lockdown (March & April 2020) of three parishes in Louisiana. The data for this study was acquired using Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Level 2, Collection 2, Tier 2 from the Google Earth Engine Catalog. For better visualization, the images that were derived had a cloud cover of less than 10%. Also, images for the three study areas were processed and categorized into four main classes: water, vegetation, built-up areas, and bare lands using a Random Forest Supervised Classification Algorithm. To improve the accuracy of the image classifications, three Normalized Difference Indices namely the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Built-Up Index (NDBI) were employed using the Near Infrared (NIR), Red, Green and SWIR bands for the calculations. After, these images were processed in Google Earth Engine to generate the LST products gridded at 30 m with a higher spatial resolution of 100 m according to the pre-pandemic (2019) and lockdown (2020) periods for the three study areas. Results of this study showed a decrease in LST values of the land cover classes from 2019 to 2020, with LST values in East Baton Parish decreasing from 44°C to 38°C, 42°C to 38°C in Lafayette Parish, and 43°C to 38°C in Orleans Parish. The variations in the LST values therefore indicate the impact of fewer anthropogenic factors on the earth’s temperature which requires regulatory and mitigative measures to continually reduce LST and control microclimate, especially in urban areas.

Mapping Supply-Demand of Riparian Ecosystem Service for Riparian Greenspace Planning on Multiple Spatial Scales

Riparian areas produce a variety of ecosystem service(ES)functions and play an important role in the coupled nature-human systems.Taking account of riparian ES in riparian greenspace planning framework and balancing the ecological and social aspects of ES can help to achieve the composite goals for urban-rural sustainability.However,there is still a lack of research on the integration thinking and quantification approach for riparian ES to support riparian greenspace planning and decision-making.This research mainly discusses the possible way of incorporating the ES into riparian greenspace planning and presents an integrated framework of the interaction between riparian ES and riparian greenspace planning,including evaluating riparian ES supply-demand budget to support multi-scales(region,urban,and street)riparian greenspace planning.Taking the Nanchuan District of Chongqing in China as a case study,we aim to achieve the following three results:first,recognizing the relationship and building a link between riparian ES and riparian greenspace planning;second,establishing a multi-scale scoring system of two ES supply-demand indicators for mapping on three spatial scales;third,applying riparian ES supply-demand mapping into riparian greenspace planning from three aspects of balancing planning goals,multi-scale planning tasks,and planning strategies and policies.

Greenspace’s value orientations of ecosystem service and socioeconomic service in China

Background:Natural ecosystems provide necessary services for human beings,including ecosystem service values(ESVs)and socioeconomic service values(SSVs).The value orientations of ESVs and SSVs are mainly related to people’s interaction with nature.This study reclassified greenspace from a perspective of exposed and non-exposed greenspace based on the level of interaction by people and greenspace.We applied an expert questionnaire to survey the SSVs value orientations of forestland,grassland,wetland,and water bodies,and quantitatively compared the value orientations between the ESVs and SSVs of greenspace in China.Result:(1)The values of exposed greenspace were relatively far higher than nonexposed greenspace,as it had both ESVs and SSVs.(2)The forestland and grassland had relatively high ESVs and SSVs,and are the priority for both the exposed and non-exposed greenspace.(3)Wetland had relatively high ESVs but low SSVs,which was unpopular for exposed greenspace.(4)The ESVs and SSVs of water body were relatively balanced.Conclusion:Greenspace had both ESVs and SSVs when they are exposed to human.Our study provided an innovative perspective to explore the value orientations of greenspace,which provides an actionable scientific basis for greenspace planning,design and construction in human habitat.

Impacts of de-icing salt pollution on urban road greenspace： a case study of Beijing

De-icing salt contamination of urban soil and greenspace has been a common issue of concern in many countries for years. In the 2009/2010 winter, Beijing experienced a contamination accident resulting from the overuse of deicing salt, reported as almost 30000 tons, which severely damaged urban vegetation alongside roadways. The methods of sampling and rating for both soil contamination and response of the plant populations were developed to rapidly assess this emergency environmental event. Results showed that the shrubs were more severely damaged than the arbors in terms of both degree and extent, as almost all of the surveyed shrubs were severely damaged from the salt contamination, while only about 1/4 of the recorded arbors were rated as ＂severely injured＂ according to the integral plant injury index. The rating of the injury level showed that the trees like Pinus bungeana, Sophora japonica, and the shrubs like Euonymus japonicus, Sabina vulgaris showed less tolerance to de-icing salt pollution. The patterns of vegetation damage demonstrated that the ever-green shrubs alongside roads and the deciduous arbors in the center of roads were most vulnerable to the salt damage.