Upcoming Webinar - Prescribing Nature: Designing for Health, Equity, and Connection

Prescribing Nature: Designing for Health, Equity, and Connection

Thursday, May 29
1-2pm EDT 

Zip code is one of the strongest predictors of life expectancy, but why? The research indicates that this is less about proximity to health care facilities and more about access to environmental and social infrastructure: safe streets, clean air, quality housing, and nearby parks. In short, it’s about the built and natural environments — and how they are planned, designed, managed, and maintained.

This webinar, presented in partnership with The Learning Network of the Nature and Health Alliance, is a conversation about the intersection of public health, landscape architecture, and equity. Together, the panelists will explore how nature can be part of a systemic solution to health issues and disparities and how urban design and public health can become integrated practices.

Dr. Robert Zarr brings the perspective of a physician working within the transactional norms of the healthcare system but advocating for a new approach: prescriptions that connect people to nature as a core part of wellness. His work explores how the absence of nature contributes to poor health outcomes and what implementation of nature-based “prescriptions” might look like in real life. 

Chelina Odbert complements this with a designer’s view. It’s not enough to prescribe nature if the built environment itself is unsafe, unequal, or inaccessible. Her firm’s work insists that for anyone to benefit from their surroundings, those spaces must first meet baseline standards of inclusion, equity, and dignity.

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Sponsor

Learning Objectives

1. Understand how health is more about parks, public space, and housing than medicine alone and how nature can be part of a systemic solution to disconnection and chronic illness.
2. Recognize how medical professionals see the role of design in their efforts to prescribe nature to patients.
3. View the future of design and public health as collaborative, not separate, practices.

Continuing Education Credits

This course is approved for 1.0 Professional Development Hour (PDH) through the Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System (LA CES) and meets the health, safety and welfare requirements (HSW). 1.0 LA CES (HSW) may be earned upon completion of a short quiz following the webinar.

Panelists

Dr. Robert Zarr, MD, MPH
Founder & Medical Director
Park Rx America

Robert is a physician researcher and public health pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. He was formerly at Unity Health Care, Inc. Robert has provided medical attention to BIPOC and immigrant populations for more than 20 years. He is also a certified nature and forest therapy guide.

Chelina Odbert
CEO & Founding Principal
Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI)

Chelina has built an award-winning practice that brings good design to places where it is not often found and that connects localized design interventions to large-scale policy change. An urban planner by training, Chelina’s experience and expertise cover a range of topics from participatory planning to gender-inclusive design. She has written extensively about KDI’s community-engaged approach to planning in the U.S. and abroad.

Amy Wagenfeld, PhD (Moderator)
Co-Director
The Learning Network of the Nature and Health Alliance

Amy’s roles as an occupational therapist include therapeutic and universal design consultant, educator, researcher, and author. With a strong background in human development, Amy is passionate about providing people of all ages, abilities, and cultures equitable, inclusive, and safe access to therapeutic environments. She recognizes that successful design must, at its core, support mental health and foster resilience.

LAF hosts live webinars in which guest presenters share innovative work and discuss timely issues. The recorded webinars are archived on LAF's website, and many can be viewed on demand to earn continuing education credits through LA CES. LAF is able to make these resources freely available thanks to the financial support of individuals like you. If you find this webinar valuable, please consider making a donation to help us cover hosting and administrative costs. To learn about upcoming webinars, sign up for our emails.