About me
Author of Landscape and Urban Design for Health and WellBeing, Using Healing, Sensory and Therapeutic Gardens (2014, Routledge Press, London) Dr Souter-Brown is a practicing landscape architect, public health researcher and policy writer, community wellbeing consultant, holistic systems thinker and doer. A Taylor Francis-named UN Sustainable Development Goal Thought Leader, her multidisciplinary approach closes the knowledge-to-action gap accelerating climate action to protect urban, and rural, health.
Souter-Brown's translatable, cost effective, innovative research and practice explore human-nature interaction as it impacts chronic stress. Effects of the qualities of the built and natural environment on the social and environmental determinants of health feature across her work. Unafraid to question the status quo, quantitative methods inform her work, balanced by the qualitative 'how things feel'.
Conducting the first randomised controlled trial to measure effects of a specific environmental intervention to address mental health, wellbeing and hence non communicable disease, she found statistically, clinically and socially significant results. Salivary cortisol reductions of almost 20% offer significant benefits to public health in the face of climate change.
Interested in health promotion, mental health and sustainable development, Dr Souter-Brown integrates innate wisdom, indigenous knowledge, and modern-day mixed methods research. Working remotely and in-person, her award-winning global salutogenic design practice references theories of place, attachment, stress reduction, attention restoration and biophilia. She researches, writes, is an invited speaker, advises and teaches internationally. Gayle is based between London, England, and her farm in rural Canterbury, New Zealand.
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