Community gardens support stress coping and health – A comparison of rural and urban perceptions of benefits

Abstract

Community gardens provide health and stress coping benefits in various geographic settings. However, despite the different structural contexts of rural and urban areas, little work has considered how community garden health benefits may differ in these contrasting settings. We collected and analyzed in-depth interviews (N = 34) with mostly White, middle-class rural and urban community garden organizers across the United States to explore understandings of community garden health benefits within these different geographic contexts. Rural participants emphasize the holistic community orientation of their gardens, which were simultaneously embedded in, strengthening, and reliant upon their surrounding communities. In contrast, urban participants emphasize experiences of their gardens as natural spaces and emphasize community gardening as a key driver of interacting with nature. While increases in social connectedness and interactions with nature have been shown to improve health through promoting stress coping, our comparative approach demonstrates the varying impact community gardens can have in rural and urban settings.