Natural England - People and access evidence and research
People and access evidence and research
Natural England’s aim is to enable more people to enjoy, understand and act for the natural environment. The main focus of our evidence programme is to improve our understanding of people’s attitudes and behaviours towards the natural world and of the beneficial effects it provides to people’s health and wellbeing. Work is often undertaken in partnership with other organisations and we are a member of the Countryside Recreation Network, which exists to exchange and share information and to develop best and practice in countryside recreation.
For other information on our work with people and access see Enjoying the natural environment .
Resources
Monitoring Engagement with the Natural Environment
Natural England publications
Related websites
Natural England evidence projects
Research
| ID | Title | Description | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| RP0419 | Accessible green space: map based evidence | Natural England holds data on c80% of accessible land. This project aims to combine data held across Natural England in a consistent way; clean data; assess the actual coverage; identify where there are data gaps and assess the potential to make data available to share with partners. The project will also develop applications for the evidence base including: analysis to present visual evidence relating to green space and health; deprivation and other indices; monitoring to measure the provision of green space; and assessment of using data/maps to support a calculator/tool for local communities. The outputs will be a report and maps on WebMap.
| Andrew Gale |
| RP0435 | Walking for Health economic benefits: Economic cost data collection and Analysis | Walking for Health (WfH) encourages people to become physically active in their local communities. It comprises a network of schemes across England that offer regular short walks over easy terrain with trained walk leaders. The purpose of this project is to gather data on the costs involved in six representative Walking for Health schemes. Data on external partner and Natural England's costs will be collected and used to evaluate Walking for Health cost effectiveness using a Cost Benefit model. The cost benefit analysis will provide critical evidence on socio-economic benefits.
Natural England's financial contribution to this project is: £78,151.00 | Dave Stone |
| RP0436 | Criterion validity and responsiveness of the Single Item Physical Activity measure. | Self reporting tools have the capacity to over or under estimate true physical activity levels. The purpose of this Loughborough University study is to validate whether the results of self assessment based on the question below can be used to detect changes in physical activity. The study tests a persons recall of the amount and change in physical activity levels they think they have performed against their actual activity as measured by an accelerometer. In the past week, on how many days have you done a total of 30 minutes or more of physical activity, which was enough to raise your heart rate? Natural England's financial contribution to this project is: £35,252.00 | Alan Pearsons |
Monitoring
| ID | Title | Description | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| RP0010 | Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) | Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) is a sample survey of the adult population which provides data on visits to the natural environment at regional and national level. It is being undertaken as part of a weekly in-home omnibus survey. It provides information to support a range of Natural England projects and programmes. The first two years of fieldwork have been completed and a 3rd year [2011/12] is now underway.MENE has been commissioned by Natural England, in conjunction with Defra and the Forestry Commission.
Natural England's financial contribution to this project is: £360,001.00 | Erica Wayman |
| RP0195 | Monitoring and evaluation of the Walking for Health programme | Walking for Health (WFH) encourages people to become physically active in their local communities. A network of schemes across England offer regular short walks over easy terrain with trained walk leaders. The aim of this project is to monitor and evaluate the WfH programme. The WfH database will store personal information on walkers including health data, details of walk schemes, the walks associated with the umbrella scheme and logs of attendance registers of walkers activity. This will be used to monitor, analyse and help evaluate the expanding walking schemes from 2009 to 2012. Partnership with the Department of Health.
| Alan Pearsons |
| RP0504 | Standards for Access and Engagement On-site Monitoring | Natural England is looking to establish and support common onsite visitor monitoring standards and disseminate best practice, both internally and across the sector. The aim of the project is to develop, test and pilot standard on-site visitor monitoring approaches at three different levels of intensity low, medium and high that can be adopted by a range of access schemes/projects/partner organisations to enable consistent monitoring of how people access and engage with the natural environment, at the local site level. This project is to compliment MENE working more at the local site level.
| Rob Keane |
Evaluation
| ID | Title | Description | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| RP0258 | Evaluation of the Access To Nature Grants Programme | The Access to Nature Grants Programme is part of Big Lottery's Changing Spaces Programme. This is a formative programme evaluation reporting initially to the Project Steering Group, with a final report to be published in 2013. Every project will do its own self-evaluation, and 20 projects will be selected for detailed case study.
Natural England's financial contribution to this project is: £154,228.86 | Alison Hill |
