Glossary of Terms

Nature’s Impact on Human Health Action Guide Phase:

I. Belmont Report – describes the ethical principles for conducting research involving people.

II. Cultural Competence –ability of a person to understand a culture different than their own. Becoming culturally competent entails not just understanding, but developing skills to engage with other cultures and increasing your knowledge about the other culture.

III. Cultural humility – the recognition that there is no way to truly be competent in someone else’s culture, but encompasses the attitude of humility and a willingness to learn.

IV. Domain – the theme of a group of questions that focuses on one of four areas related to human health: physical health/activity, mental health, social cohesion, environmental risk factors.

V. Environmental Risk Exposure – exposure to chemical, biological or physical substances found in the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat or soil we use that cause a number of health issues.

VI. Green intervention – Green Interventions are efforts to improve the landscape or increase access to nature in order to improve health in communities where it is most needed.

VII. Nature-based solution – in this guide, used synonymously with the term “green intervention.”

VIII. Incentives – The use of incentives to compensate participants is common and is considered an acceptable practice. Any payment for participation in your research should be fair and just, compensating individuals for their contribution (e.g., time spent or loss of wages plus reimbursement for reasonable travel and lodging expenses) without undue influence. In addition to monetary payments such as cash, gift cards, certificates, or vouchers, incentives and compensation can be offered in nonmonetary forms such as promotional items.

IX. Informed Consent – When recruiting for your project, you must obtain informed consent from participants before involving a human subject in your research. The prospective participant must be given adequate opportunity to consider whether to participate, and the offer to participate must minimize the possibility of undue influence.

X. Population – the group of people your green intervention is intended to serve; in this guide used to denote the group of people you intend your survey to reach.

XI. Reporting Template – a pre-designed, graphically pleasing template that can be used to create a two to four-page report of the study results. The template indicates areas where photographs can be placed and provides suggested topics to report, including: 1) the story of the nature/human health research; 2) a vignette from the results gathered during the survey; 3) supporting results.

XII. Research question – the key question the research is trying to answer. It informs the questions asked of respondents and how results are presented.

XIII. Respondent – the survey participant.

XIV. Sample size – is the projected amount of respondents needed to participate in a study. It will depend on the research question, target population, margin of error, confidence level, and data analysis to be performed.

XV. Surveyor – the person administering the survey.

Nature’s Impact on Human Health Action Guide