Ecological medicine is emerging as a new field in health science, focusing on the benefits of human connection with nature, animals, and each other. The approach draws from longstanding ideas about well-being and incorporates Indigenous perspectives on humanity’s relationship with the natural world.
Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez, associate professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and director of the Green Care Lab, stated: “Everything you suspected was good for you — fresh air, trees, animal companions, purpose, reciprocity — turns out to have peer-reviewed backing.”
A consensus statement defining ecological medicine was published on October 25 in Ecohealth by Calisi Rodríguez; Lynette Hart, professor emeritus at UC Davis; and Alessandro Ossola, associate professor in plant sciences at UC Davis. The statement reflects work that began during a 2024 symposium and workshop at UCLA organized by faculty from its Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Professors Helen Hansen and Michael Makhinson led the event alongside Landon Pollack from Yale University. Hansen now directs the UCLA Ecological Medicine & Psychedelic Studies Initiative with Pollack as codirector.
Ossola commented on the collaborative atmosphere: “The organizers built a community that was very diverse, with very open conversations.”
Hart has researched animal behavior and human-animal connections for over forty years. She emphasized expanding research beyond direct therapeutic benefits to consider broader health impacts: “We need to take a wider perspective,” she said. “The goal is a new kind of medicine that fosters health rather than chasing diseases.”
Ecological medicine builds upon but goes further than the One Health concept—which links human, animal, and environmental health—by including psychological and social relationships among people and their environments.
Ossola’s Urban Science Lab examines how urban greenery affects public well-being. For instance, his team measured shade levels in California elementary schools to study playground temperatures’ effects on children. He argued that urban green spaces should be valued similarly to traditional healthcare resources: “We know that if you live in a more natural environment with connection to nature, it has escalating effects on health,” he said.
He cited practices such as Japan’s shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing”), which has demonstrated stress-reducing effects through mindful immersion in nature. Similarly, Britain’s National Health Service offers Green Social Prescribing programs supporting nature-based activities for improved mental and physical health.
Calisi Rodríguez shifted her research focus after studying stress hormones’ impact on birds’ brains: “After enough years staring at stress hormones, I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my career documenting what breaks us. I wanted to study how we heal,” she said. “Ecological Medicine is a growing field I believe in so deeply that I’m reshaping my entire research program around it.”
UC Davis positions itself as a leader in ecological medicine due to its sustainability efforts and extensive green spaces. The campus features projects like Sheepmowers—where sheep graze central areas while researchers monitor student mental health—and maintains natural habitats through its Arboretum.
“Ecological Medicine tells us how to create lives worth living,” Calisi Rodríguez said. “Giving this field a name gives us a compass, a vocabulary, and a way to study how humans, communities and ecosystems can actually thrive, not just survive.”
