Urban environment, mindfulness meditation and mental health: a bibliometric review

Purpose Building a healthy city that is conducive to improving residents' mental health is a current hot topic in the field of urban research on human health issues. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive summary of research on the associations between the urban environment and mental health on the basis of bibliometrics. Design/methodology/approach VOSviewer software is used to analyze 129 publications from the Web of Science core dataset. Findings (1) Urban environmental exerts its health benefits by increasing exposure levels, providing ecological service functions and additional benefits. (2) Meditation, as an active intervention factor, reinforces the health benefits by strengthening the human-nature connection and enhances the effects of nature exposure. (3) There are some contradictions between existing examples of meditation-space cases and theoretical knowledge. Originality/value Some evidence has shown that more research is needed to understand the internal principles when meditation and the environment are superimposed, including examining the specific composition of environmental elements and clarifying the impact of environmental preferences on the willingness to meditate. The theoretical basis can then be fed back into urban design to improve mental health through active intervention.