Effects of Virtual Nature Exposure on State Social Motivation

In 2017, healthcare costs rose 3.9% to $3.5 trillion dollars, which was 17.9% of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2017). Increased healthcare costs are a product of many variables: however, growing numbers of people with chronic diseases are the biggest driver. In 2008, 50% of adults were diagnosed with at least one of the following chronic diseases: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2009). Hospitals, prescriptions, and health care provider treatment accounted for 66% of healthcare costs in 2017 (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2017). Low cost, complementary, accessible interventions are needed to conjunctively address this healthcare crisis and to help improve human health and suffering while concomitantly alleviating the burden of healthcare costs. A novel intervention that meets these qualifications has been explored recently in the literature: nature exposure. Research regarding the impact of nature exposure on health has found promising results and needs to be explored further (Bratman et al., 2015; Brown et al., 2013; Capaldi et al., 2014; Chalmers et al., 2014; Coley et al., 1997; Engemann et al., 2019; Farrow & Washburn, 2019; Gladwell et al., 2012; Hartig et al., 2014; Twohig-Bennett & Jones, 2018).