A valuation study to identify the determinants of the demand for time spent outdoors among users of hospital facilities, their willingness-to-pay for green infrastructure improvements, and the implications for planning.
Date
2024-03-06
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group
Abstract
Green infrastructure has been promoted as an urban planning tool for the achievement of health and environmental policy objectives. The capacity of economic valuation methods to estimate monetary benefit values for intangible goods, such as mental health and wellbeing, renders them useful in justifying green infrastructure interventions and guiding their implementation. In this case study we used stated preference methods to elicit cross-sectional data on the preferences of staff (n=118), visitors (n=88), and inpatients (n=35) of Musgrave Park Hospital in Northern Ireland, for improvements in the hospital’s outdoor grounds. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to use the contingent behavior method to examine the demand for time spent on the improved outdoor grounds of a hospital and the first to use the contingent valuation method to obtain the respective willingness-to-pay values. The results show that the three hospital user groups differed in their preferred types of green infrastructure and their motivations for using the outdoor grounds, an important input for planning the transformation of the outdoors. Other findings suggest that to maximize health and well-being benefits, complementary measures to address the issues of sedentary lifestyles and inadequate use of the outdoors as a stress-coping mechanism are needed.
Description
Publication history: Accepted - 14 Feb 2024; Published online - 06 Mar 2024
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Keywords
Green infrastructure, contingent behaviour, contingent valuation, hospital facilities, time spent outdoors
Citation
Zachariou, M. and Longo, A. (2024) ‘A valuation study to identify the determinants of the demand for time spent outdoors among users of hospital facilities, their willingness-to-pay for green infrastructure improvements, and the implications for planning’, Cities & Health. Informa UK Limited. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2024.2320473.