Participatory Action Research on the Impact of Community Gardening in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Investigating the Seeding Plan in Shanghai, China

Huaiyun Kou, Sichu Zhang, Wenjia Li and Yuelai Liu
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Huaiyun Kou: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Key Laboratory of Ecology and Energy-Saving Study of Dense Habitat of Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Sichu Zhang: Library and Information Centre, Shanghai Urban Construction Vocational College, Shanghai 200433, China
Wenjia Li: College of Communication and Art Design, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Yuelai Liu: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Key Laboratory of Ecology and Energy-Saving Study of Dense Habitat of Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: This study aims to examine the impacts of community gardening on the daily life of residents and the management organisation of pandemic prevention in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major public health scourge in 2020. The research team applied a participatory action research approach to work with residents to design and implement the Seeding Plan, a contactless community gardening program. The authors carried out a study to compare the everyday conditions reflecting residents’ mental health of the three subject groups during the pandemic: the participants of the Seeding Plan (Group A), the non-participants living in the same communities that had implemented the Seeding Plan (Group B), and the non-participants in other communities (Group C). According to the results, group A showed the best mental health among the three; Group B, positively influenced by seeding activities, was better than Group C. The interview results also confirmed that the community connections established through gardening activities have a significant impact on maintaining a positive social mentality under extraordinary circumstances. From this, the study concluded that gardening activities can improve people’s mental health, effectively resist negative impacts, and it is a convenient tool with spreading influence on the entire community, so as to support the collective response to public health emergencies in a bottom-up direction by the community.

Keywords: community gardening; PAR; COVID-19 pandemic; mental health; community building (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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