ArticlePreventive medicine reports2019
Physical activity mediates the relationship between outdoor time and mental health.
Article in Preventive medicine reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of Mechanisms Underpinning Psychological Change Following Nature Exposure in an Adolescent Population.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Outdoor Physical Activity and Youth Mental Well-Being: A Narrative Review with Mountain Biking as an Illustrative Case.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Physical activity and depressive symptoms among college students: positive mental health as a mediator.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Walkability and Mental Health Resiliency During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Health economics · 2025Article
- Outdoor physical activity, mental health, life satisfaction, happiness and life stress among Canadian adolescents.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2025Article
- Longitudinal associations between chronic physical conditions, play behavior, and mental health problems in children.World journal of pediatrics : WJP · 2025Article
- Cold weather isolation is worse in poor and non-white neighborhoods in the United States.Preventive medicine reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Impact of Coastal Walking Outdoors and Virtual Reality Indoor Walking on Heart Rate, Enjoyment Levels and Mindfulness Experiences in Healthy Adults.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2023Article
- Green Physical Activity Indicator: Health, Physical Activity and Spending Time Outdoors Related to Residents Preference for Greenery.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The impact of urban green space on the health of middle-aged and older adults.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Effects of mask wearing duration and relative humidity on thermal perception in the summer outdoor built environment.Building simulation · 2022Article
- Park access and mental health among parents and children during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Assessment of Subjective Well-Being in a Cohort of University Students and Staff Members: Association with Physical Activity and Outdoor Leisure Time during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Maternal excess adiposity and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D < 50 nmol/L are associated with elevated whole body fat mass in healthy breastfed neonates.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Article
- Social prescribing of nature therapy for adults with mental illness living in the community: A scoping review of peer-reviewed international evidence.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- On the Parental Influence on Children's Physical Activities and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Elevating the Role of the Outdoor Environment for Adolescent Wellbeing in Everyday Life.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Associations between screen time, physical activity, and depressive symptoms during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak among Chinese college students.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2021Article
- Enhancing Adolescent Girls' Well-Being in the Arctic-Finding What Motivates Spending Time in Nature.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Both spending time outdoors and participating in physical activity improve mental health. Given that the outdoor environment provides an ideal location for physical activity, better understanding of the relationships among time spent outdoors, physical activity and positive mental health is needed to help guide interventions. The aim was to examine if physical activity moderates or mediates the relationship between outdoor time and positive mental health. Two-hundred-forty-two participants (15 ± 1 years old, 59% girls) from New Brunswick, Canada were included in the current analysis. Youth self-reported time spent outdoors and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) three times between October 2016 and June 2017. Data on their mental health were collected in October 2017. Values of outdoor time and MVPA were averaged across the three time points to represent the exposure and mediator variables, respectively. Mental health, dichotomized as flourishing/not flourishing, was the outcome in the mediation analysis. An interaction term tested if the mediation effect depended on outdoor time. Analyses were undertaken in 2019 using the mediation package in R. In univariate analyses, both MVPA (p < 0.001) and outdoor time (p = 0.05) were positive predictors of flourishing mental health. In mediation analyses, a small indirect mediation (OR: 1.02, 95% CI: 1.01-1.04) and no direct (1.00, 0.98-1.05) effect were noted, suggesting that MVPA mediates the effect of outdoor time on positive mental health. This effect did not vary as a function of outdoor time (interaction: 1.00, 0.99-1.01). Physical activity mediates the relationship between outdoor time and positive mental health. Outdoor time could promote positive mental health among youth through increases in physical activity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.