Community garden initiatives addressing health and well‐being outcomes: A systematic review of infodemiology aspects, outcomes, and target populations

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that activities such as community gardens could offer a wide range of health benefits. The aim of the article is to systematically review the available literature to analyse the magnitude of the phenomenon, the geographical distribution, and the main characteristics in terms of health outcomes and target populations. The search addresses the ques-tion whether the activity in community gardens improves health and well‐being outcomes of in-dividuals. From the total amount of 7226, 84 selected articles showed that:(1) up to 50% are pub-lished by U.S. universities or institutions; (2) up to 44% of the studies considered “community gardens” as the main activity of the research focus; (3) one‐third of the studies included adults; (4) almost 25% of the studies used “general health” as the main outcome when investigating the benefits of community gardens; (5) the percentage of studies that achieved their outcomes was heter-ogeneous among the different health dimensions. In conclusion, while a certain degree of hetero-geneity in the used definition and outcome still exist, community gardens may be a viable strategy for well‐being promotion in terms of psychological, social, and physical health and may be considered as an innovative urban strategy to promote urban public health.