Who are we? Who are our Partners?
Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities (GGHC) is a collaborative research project directed by Dr. Jill Litt of the Colorado School of Public Health. Faculty, students and staff from the Colorado School of Public Health and the School of Architecture and Planning are involved in the research. Our community partners include Denver Urban Gardens (www.dug.org), and Front Range Earth Force (www.earthforce.org), in addition to a network of Denver residents.

What are we doing and why?
The GGHC initiative is a multi-year study of over 80 community gardens in Denver to learn about the health and social benefits of community gardening. Gardens are one example of a local neighborhood environment where the associated activities represent a range of activities that have purpose and coherence, foster social cohesion and informal social control that can promote health and well-being. GGHC will help inform ways in which communities can be more active and have access to safe and healthy food, and is part of a growing movement to look at the relationship between the environment, neighborhood social and psychological process, health behaviors (physical activity and nutrition) and health status. The results of this study will help inform strategies, including public policies, land use and planning regulations, community development and public health program development about the features (e.g., neighborhood green space), perceptions (e.g., perceived environmental aesthetics, incivilities, safety) and processes within neighborhoods (e.g., place attachment, collective efficacy) that can strengthen neighborhoods and promote population health.

How are we collecting the information?
Researchers involved with Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities collected information through workshops and interviews with community gardeners, surveys with neighborhood residents surrounding community gardens, summer camps with youth who live near gardens, and through other sources such as the US Census. We established a Healthy Neighborhood Network (HNN), a group of community gardeners, community leaders and activists, youth, academic researchers, public officials, and non-gardeners living in these areas who share ideas, help guide the project, bring feedback and ideas from the community to the project, and report back to the community. This network has been critical to the evolution of our research study and importantly to the interpretation and synthesis of the data collected throughout this process. Moreover, the HNN has been a critical player in the design and implementation of our neighborhood initiative, entitled “Connecting Generations,” a multi-generational school-based intervention to bring young adults and adults over 55 together through a multi-level garden intervention.

What will do we do with the information?
The knowledge generated through this study is now being synthesized and packaged for dissemination. We are working with filmmaker Mr. Larry Bograd to create a documentary film on the community gardens and health. We have several scientific papers under review and one published in Health and Place. We will develop complementary research briefs that will be widely available by spring 2010. Quarterly updates on the research can be found in The Underground News, Denver Urban Garden’s newsletter (email dirt@dug.org for a copy or archived copies

Why is this important?
Community gardens are an example of a neighborhood space in which people can come together to socialize, obtain fresh food and to engage in physical activity. This project aims to understand the social and psychological processes that may explain how garden participation and the act of gardening itself are health-promotive. This project draws on qualitative and quantitative information and thus provides a rich understanding of neighborhood environments and health. Because it is grounded in participatory research methods, the questions we asked and the findings we report reflect the insights and interpretations of our community partners. Such collaboration ensures that our work is understandable and practical for translation to local policy and program design, implementation and evaluation.

Who is paying for this?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities from 2004-2009. The Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) has provided additional funding for dissemination activities, including the production of our documentary (2009-2010).

Partners:

Department of Environmental Health

Department of Epidemiology

College of Architecture and Planning

Who is supervising us?

Researchers involved with Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities are accountable to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, and YOU. Information will be provided to the CDC, the university, and to you through the Healthy Neighborhood Network, our website (in process), and other community processes including meetings with Denver Urban Gardens and Front Range Earth Force and dissemination of information through local papers and newsletters.