
Doctors in Washington, D.C. are beginning to write prescriptions for their patients to spend time in parks to improve their health.
Shenandoah National Park. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
The initiative known as D.C. Park Rx is a partnership spearheaded by the National Park Service (NPS), whose Healthy Parks Healthy People program aims to connect people to parks through health promotion while creating the next generation of park stewards.
D.C. Park Rx’s greatest champion is Dr. Robert Zarr, a practicing primary care pediatrician at Unity Health Care’s Upper Cardozo Community Health Center. Dr. Zarr has persuaded 27 of his colleagues to prescribe parks to their patients, and over 500 prescriptions have been made in the past nine months.
Last year a searchable database of 350 city parks was linked to Electronic Medical Records. Those parks are rated based upon access, cleanliness, level of activity and safety. Mapping all of D.C.’s green spaces was an effort that involved volunteers as well as several organizations including the NPS and the National Environmental Education Foundation.
NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis, Dr. Robert Zarr, Dr. Maria Cristi Rueda and a patient holding her park prescription. Photo credit: HealthIT.gov
“With the information provided by [Park Rx], my children are more active and I feel encouraged to take them to the park,” said a patient's mother, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s Health IT Buzz. "I am happy because on my last visit with the doctor, my daughter lost one pound."
“Our patients, my colleagues, and I have embraced Park Rx with open arms because we are all ready for a positive approach to chronic disease that poses virtually no risk, but both prevents and treats our modern day plagues like obesity, asthma and mental illness,” Dr. Zarr wrote in a blog.
“By getting people outside in Nature, I find that much more happens than weight reduction, lower heart rate and a sense of focus and well-being. We start to understand and value trees, clean air, water, fauna and flora in a way we hadn’t before, and we feel committed. We are creating the next generation of environmental stewards, conservationists and activists,” he added.
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<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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