having stimulating conversation, you’ re really capturing a lot more mechanisms for improving your health.”
“ They all work together to make you healthier,” agrees longtime Walk with a Doc participant Jay Mendes. That said, many of the group’ s regulars, who are 65 or older, prefer to walk on the level sidewalks downtown, where they can duck among the buildings if they need a buffer from the wind, enjoy urban art and historical monuments, and get a nature fix by including India Point Park in the route.“ Regardless,” Mendes says,“ the key is walking outside.”
For some, Walk with a Doc is their only opportunity to walk outside at all.“ I have had a lot of people say, I just don’ t have anywhere to walk near where I live,” Stump says. Carla Martin, MD, who leads the chapter in Central Falls, hears the same thing from her patients.“ They work in factories, they work 12-hour days,” she says. When“ it gets dark early, maybe they don’ t feel safe walking outside after dinner.”
Her monthly walks take place at River Island Park, one of the few green spaces in Central Falls, the smallest and most densely populated city in the state.“ You really feel like you’ re in nature, and you feel that peace. It really helps reduce stress to have plants and trees around,” Martin, a clinical assistant professor of medical science, says.“ I think everyone should experience that benefit.” Her majority-Latino group also gets to walk with a Spanish-speaking doctor, she adds:“ I think that means something to people too.”
Feeling that sense of belonging in nature goes hand-in-hand with feelings of safety. In Tandon’ s TEDx Talk, she asked the audience to picture an“ outdoorsy” person, as photos of mountain climbers and hikers decked out in expensive gear flashed behind her on the stage. But she wanted to challenge that conception, because, she said,“ all of us not only need access to the outdoors, but we need to feel like we belong there. We need to get to a point where outdoor experiences are not considered a luxury reserved for a few, but rather something that each of us needs and deserves.”
Outdoor recreation has historically excluded people of color, first with segregation laws, and to this day with harassment and other unwelcoming behaviors and attitudes. The belief that one must have wealth to enjoy nature further deters people. And capitalism loves to monetize activities that should cost nothing; as forest bathing has grown in popularity, for example, guests at some lavish hotels and resorts can now pay hundreds of dollars for a walk in the woods.“ It’ s hard to want to get out and be active in a public space if you don’ t feel safe there,” Cohen says.“ But there’ s some really fun data that says … that people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are of a lower socioeconomic status, seem to actually have a disproportionately higher benefit when exposed to the same green space.”
But green spaces are not all the same: Vacant lots, for example, may have plants, but they were associated with lower mental health scores in a mostly Black study population in Detroit. The participants did report higher scores if they spent time in parks— but according to the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit working to create parks and protect land, one-third of Americans, including 28 million children, don’ t have a park or green space within a 10-minute walk of their home.
As a physician, mother, and the health director for the Trust for Public Land, Tandon has embraced advocacy“ to increase park access and park equity,” she says. She helped lobby for a Washington state law, which went into effect in 2024, mandating 30 minutes of daily recess for elementary schoolers. The bill’ s authors acknowledged that“ recess supports the mental, physical, and emotional health of students and positively impacts their learning and behavior.”( Rhode Island requires at least 20 minutes of recess a day from kindergarten through sixth grade; many states, however, do not mandate recess.)
In cities, trees and plants not only lower temperatures and improve air quality, they are associated with lower stress, better mood, and even reduced crime: A 2017 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found less gun violence in parts of Philadelphia with greater tree canopy. Nonprofits are working to more fairly distribute trees across cities, a concept known as tree equity— including in Providence, where Warren Alpert medical students are joining the effort.
“ I see access to green spaces as an essential component to health, and I believe physicians can play a significant role, through policy, advocacy, and simply by getting out into the community and planting a tree,” says Katie Wainwright, who has done just that several times as a medical student.
Wainwright is a former co-leader of the Medical School’ s Environmental Coalition, which partners with the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program to plant trees in areas that need them. Neighborhood residents help deter-
14 HEALTH DISCOVERIES @ BROWN l SPRING 2026