Ksana Health and NatureQuant Announce Strategic Partnership To Accelerate the Objective Measurement of Nature on Mental Health

The answer to the pandemic’s significant effect on mental health may be spending more time in nature. Our partnership with NatureQuant allows for objective measurement of ecotherapy.

Press release: Digital Behavioral Health Innovator Ksana Health and Technology and Research Trailblazer NatureQuant Partner to Accelerate Objective Measurement of Ecotherapy on Mental Health

Ksana Health is thrilled to announce an official partnership with the NatureQuant, to bring NatureQuant’s NatureScore™ technology into Ksana Health’s behavioral health care and research platforms. NatureQuant, a unique technology and research company that provides a suite of tools to monitor, quantify, and evaluate natural elements, will now offer this important measurement to Ksana Health’s objective measurement and research platforms.

Objective measurement and personalization is the future of behavioral health and behavioral research. By providing the scores for natural spaces in Ksana’s EARS research platform, behavioral health researchers will have the ability to directly measure participant time spent in nature, allowing measurement of how that time affects behavior and mental health.

Ksana Heath’s mission is to bring objective measurement and intervention to mental health care. By enabling researchers to measure direct nature’s effect on mental health, this partnership creates the opportunity to objectively measure this characteristic in a completely new way.

NatureQuant is an innovative technology that quantifies the level of natural elements in a static geographic location. By synthesizing multiple nature quantification data sources using machine-learning processes, the technology delivers a NatureScore™ on the health benefits of a given location.

Expanding access to nature and other life-improving mental health interventions may be more important than ever before. Mental wellbeing has been significantly affected by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, with studies showing increased struggles with anxiety, depression, and substance use. Many individuals may see an immediate benefit from simply stepping outside into a natural environment, and Ksana and NatureQuant will allow researchers to quantify that impact.

Nature exposure is an important component of wellness that has been increasing in study in recent decades. A National Human Activity Pattern Study conducted in 2001 found that on average, Americans spend 87% of their time indoors, 6% in an enclosed vehicle, with only about 7 percent of their time spent outdoors. Evidence suggests that even small amounts of time spent in nature can make an impact. A study published in 2010 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology found humans can see a boost in mood and self-esteem from even as little as 5 minutes of outdoor activity.

Beyond research, Ksana and NatureQuant will also include this capability in their remote patient monitoring platform that launches in 2022. Vira, an objective measurement and intervention platform for behavioral health providers, will provide the NatureScore™ on the health benefits of a given location in the mobile therapy platform. This new measurement will allow practitioners to prescribe time spent in nature, ecotherapy, for their patients. It also enables the practitioner to see the impact that nature exposure has on that patient’s mental health. This objective measurement of nature’s effect on behavioral health could provide new measurements for value-based care in behavioral health services.