In recent years, the UK’s major health and environmental strategies have increasingly recognised that access to nature is important for good health.
The 2025 Environmental Improvement Plan includes a landmark commitment: the development of a Standard Evaluation Framework for assessing the health impacts of outdoor interventions.
Natural England has worked with cross government partners from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Sport England, Active Travel England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A wider stakeholder advisory group has also contributed valuable insight from the public health, environmental, voluntary and community sectors.
The result of this collaboration is the Healthy Outdoors guide – a practical resource designed to encourage more consistent measurement of the impact of outdoor interventions on people’s health and wellbeing.
The Healthy Outdoors guide is a practical tool designed for a range of organisations including government, the voluntary and community sector, the NHS, academia, evaluators, funders, and the private sector. It helps organisations to identify appropriate measures and principles that can help ensure evaluations are consistent, robust, and focused on health outcomes.
We would like to hear from people who have used the Healthy Outdoors guide so that we can monitor impact and to support future improvements to the guide. Please consider providing feedback on your use of this guide through this online form: Healthy Outdoors Guide-User feedback – Fill out form.
You can download the guide by clicking on one of the links below. We have provided:
• Main version (recommended): interactive PDF with enhanced graphics and links
• Accessible PDF: suitable for printing, for screen readers and users needing a simplified layout