Cultivating connection between community, agriculture, food, and green space: A narrative review of agrihoods and their impact on health and wellbeing

Background Throughout rural and urban communities in the United States, as well as in many places globally, chronic disease rates are high and increasing. Previous evidence suggests that residential environments and their designs play a role in shaping health behaviors and outcomes. Combining land use development with urban agricultural practices to create agriculturally-integrated neighborhoods (‘agrihoods’) has potential for improving the built, natural, and food environments while building community. However, the research on agrihoods is limited, and no structured reviews to date have synthesized the literature pertaining to agrihood impacts on community health. We begin filling this gap by providing a narrative review of the published and grey literature exploring opportunities and challenges of agrihoods for improving health, with an emphasis on integration of community engagement. Study design This narrative review followed Green and Colleagues’ (2001) “best-evidence synthesis” approach and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. Methods A robust search strategy was applied across the PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Science Direct, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases. All searches and screenings were conducted manually using the primary key term “agrihood/s” and several secondary terms. Eligible peer-reviewed journal articles, reports, and academic theses published until November 2024 were included. Results We extracted and analyzed 29 sources and organized our findings into four key themes: (1) Opportunities for improved health and wellbeing; (2) Challenges to promoting equal and equitable health; (3) Community-engagement for helping to meet health-related needs; and (4) Recommendations to enhance future development. Within these, fifteen sub-themes are identified and discussed in further detail. Conclusions This synthesis adds to the scientific knowledge base and can help inform future agrihood initiatives led by researchers, organizations, and developers. We anticipate that the literature on agrihoods will continue to expand as more research is conducted, warranting a future scoping or systematic review.