Ecological medicine is emerging as a new field in health science, focusing on the benefits of human connection with nature, animals, and each other. The approach draws from both scientific research and Indigenous perspectives on how humans relate to the natural world.
Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez, associate professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and director of the Green Care Lab, explained: “Everything you suspected was good for you — fresh air, trees, animal companions, purpose, reciprocity — turns out to have peer-reviewed backing.”
Calisi Rodríguez collaborated with Lynette Hart, professor emeritus at UC Davis’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and Alessandro Ossola, associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences and Urban Science Lab. Together they authored a consensus statement defining ecological medicine that was published in Ecohealth on October 25.
The consensus grew out of a 2024 symposium at UCLA organized by faculty from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Professors Helen Hansen and Michael Makhinson led the event along with Landon Pollack from Yale University. Hansen now directs the UCLA Ecological Medicine & Psychedelic Studies Initiative with Pollack as codirector.
Ossola noted: “The organizers built a community that was very diverse, with very open conversations.”
Hart has researched human-animal connections for over four decades. She commented: “We need to take a wider perspective. The goal is a new kind of medicine that fosters health rather than chasing diseases.”
Ecological medicine builds upon the One Health concept—which considers how humans, animals, and environments influence disease—by emphasizing psychological and social connections among people and nature as key to well-being.
Ossola’s Urban Science Lab investigates how urban environments impact public health. For example, his team measured shade levels at California elementary schools to assess effects on playground temperatures. He argued that urban landscapes should be recognized as public health assets similar to emergency rooms or pharmacies.
“We know that if you live in a more natural environment with connection to nature, it has escalating effects on health,” Ossola said. He referenced practices such as Japan’s shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing”)—which reduces stress—and Britain’s Green Social Prescribing program supporting nature-based activities for mental and physical health.
“There’s a reason people put plants in their homes,” he added.
Calisi Rodríguez shifted her research focus after years studying stress hormones’ effects on behavior: “After enough years staring at stress hormones, I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my career documenting what breaks us. I wanted to study how we heal,” she said. “Ecological Medicine is a growing field I believe in so deeply that I’m reshaping my entire research program around it.”
UC Davis positions itself as a leader in ecological medicine due to its large green campus and emphasis on sustainability across disciplines such as environmental research and veterinary sciences. The campus features projects like Sheepmowers—using sheep for grazing while assessing student mental health impacts—and provides access to natural spaces like its Arboretum.
“This paper marks the birth of a new field…and finally turns around to ask ‘OK but what helps us stay upright in the first place?’” Calisi Rodríguez said.
“Ecological Medicine tells us how to create lives worth living,” she concluded. “Giving this field a name gives us a compass, a vocabulary, and a way to study how humans, communities and ecosystems can actually thrive, not just survive.”
