November Wed 15th: RESONATE at the British Embassy in Vienna
Vienna lead Mat White yesterday presented the RESONATE project at the British Embassy in Austria as part of a “Climate Change and the Future of Health” event co-organised by UK and Austrian organisations including the Health and Environment Ministries and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Following an introduction by Embassy Staff the first presentation was given via video link by Sir Andy Haines (Professor of Environmental Change and Public Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) on the broad challenges to health that climate change poses. Then Mat presented an in person talk titled “Urban nature can help mitigate the health effects of climate change” which outlined how Nature-based Solutions and Nature-based Therapies can help people both adapt to issues such as Urban Heat Island effects and mitigate others by promoting more pro-environmental behaviours thorough building biopsychosocial resilience. A subsequent panel discussion and audience Q & A session also included Dr. Claudia Lichtblau (Gesundheit Österreich), Dr. Roman Hoffmann (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) and Ulla Heher (Future Health Lab). Many members of the audience expressed a lack of knowledge about social prescribing and nature-based social prescribing in particular but immediately saw the potential benefits and expressed support for RESONATE and similar projects.