Photo credit: Laura Christine Decks
CANS
The Coping and Nature During COVID Survey (CANS) is a nation-wide survey that explores
perceived benefits and constraints for people to engage with nature, which can be a behavior related to both health and leisure. The importance of access to nature was emphasized in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic as the use of parks, trails, and natural areas increased in areas where people were allowed to use them. However, reports from around the United States (US) and other countries revealed that low-income and otherwise vulnerable people restricted their use of parks and greenspaces to a greater degree or had more limited access than more advantaged people. Access to greenspace, natural areas, and parks is commonly defined in spatial terms such as the number of parks or the area of land covered with vegetation or the length of time it takes to walk to a park from a home. However, these measures describe proximity to nature, not whether a person feels they have the permission or ability to enter or use a space, characteristics which define access. The importance of feeling safe and welcomed in a space, rather than simple proximity, became apparent during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, many people began to use alternative forms of nature (e.g., nature videos, recordings of nature sounds, watching birds from their windows). The CANS was developed to explore the intersection of identities and whether people felt they had access to greenspace and what elements they considered to be "nature." Prior research has used various models, including the “health belief model” from public health and the concept of “leisure constraints negotiation” from the field of leisure sciences, to explore the interaction among factors that influence health and leisure behaviors. The survey assessed the perceived threats of COVID-19, interactions of multiple components of identity, including race and ethnicity, gender, age, ability, mental and physical health status, lifestyle behaviors, individual definition of nature, and self-efficacy to engage with nature on patterns of engagement with nature. (Funded by the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University and The Negaunee Foundation) |
Collaborators
We are thankful to all the collaborators whose work and contributions have been essential for the success of this research.