Research snapshot

This research project is being undertaken by Ben Knowles as part of his PhD in Public Health.

The project asks the overarching question:

How can an emerging Outdoor Health (OH) sector ensure that practices are safe and ethical, and consistently deliver positive health and wellbeing outcomes in our changing world?

This question came out of an identified need, to better understand what is commonly done across diverse nature-based health practices, to ensure they are undertaken safely and ethically.

The study recognises how ‘safety’ and ‘ethics’ are considered in many different ways and often considered carefully by organisations and practitioners. The study will gather, compare and analyse knowledge about what is commonly done in this area.

It will contribute to foundational knowledge for the emerging outdoor health sector in this country.

Study design:

The study is a mixed methods convergent case study, which means that I am looking to compare:

• what is done across a range of organisations to ensure the practice is safe; and,
• what ethical questions or dilemmas are considered and how these are responded to in practice.

The study will collect both quantitative and qualitative data in a number of ways, from a range of perspectives including organisations, employees, groups of employees, organisation documents, website etc.

Get in touch to find out more: [email protected]. | 03 8547 9555