The antidote to America's health crisis is closer than you think

One of America’s greatest opportunities for public health intervention lies outside our front doors.

Across the country, health leaders and policymakers are searching for solutions to rising health care costs, plus troubling rates of chronic disease and a mental health crisis among young people. Increasingly, they are looking upstream – toward prevention and resilience – before illness takes root.

One powerful solution is hiding in plain sight: the outdoors.

Decades of research show that time spent outside can deliver health outcomes that no indoor or clinical intervention can fully replicate. Outdoor recreation improves mental health and cognitive clarity, strengthens immune and heart function and supports healthy childhood development through free and exploratory play. It reduces stress, builds emotional resilience and fosters stronger social connections and communities. And it can help reduce disease rates and lower health care costs. It can even benefit your gut health and eyesight.

This is the vision behind America’s Outdoor Era – a national strategy that recognizes outdoor recreation as essential health infrastructure.

The timing could not be more urgent.

It is also becoming easier than ever to spend our lives indoors – a pattern with growing implications for long-term health, workforce readiness and social cohesion. Even before the pandemic, mental health challenges were among the leading causes of disability and poor life outcomes for young people. Today, roughly one in five children and adolescents in the United States experiences a mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorder. Obesity rates remain high across all age groups in much of the country. Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General warned of an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. A 2025 White House "Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment" pointed to concerns that children are spending less time outdoors and in nature.

Meanwhile, U.S. healthcare spending surpassed $5 trillion in 2024, driven in large part by the treatment of preventable chronic disease. If current trends continue, we risk becoming more indoor-bound, less active, and more disconnected to one another and our natural world – while continuing to shoulder the financial costs that follow.

The United States cannot treat its way out of these challenges alone. We must also prevent them.

Outdoor recreation provides an accessible and scalable solution – one that benefits both people and the economy. America’s outdoor recreation sector is already a major national asset, generating more than $1.3 trillion in economic output and supporting 5.2 million jobs nationwide. Investing in outdoor access is not simply about recreation. It is about healthier communities, stronger local economies and a more resilient society.

Congress has already begun laying the groundwork for this vision. The bipartisan EXPLORE Act, signed into law in 2025, expands opportunities for Americans to experience public lands and waters while modernizing recreation infrastructure and partnerships.

But we can go further.

To fully realize the potential of outdoor recreation as a health solution, leaders across a range of sectors – from health systems and insurers to employers and educators – must work together to integrate nature into the way America thinks about health.

That means expanding recreation infrastructure and access so every American can get outside close to home. It means building stronger partnerships between the health care sector and the outdoor economy to integrate outdoor activity into prevention and care strategies. And it means elevating trusted voices – from doctors and community leaders to coaches and veterans – to champion time outside as a powerful tool for health and resilience.

The science and research already exist. The urgency is clear. And the opportunity is enormous.

This country’s parks, waterways, trails, marinas, bike lanes, campgrounds and open spaces are more than places for life-changing outdoor recreation experiences. Our public lands and waters are an American asset – for improving physical health, strengthening mental well-being and building more connected communities.

The next breakthrough in the nation’s health care could be closer than we think: right outside our front door.

Jessica Turner is the President of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the leading business coalition advancing a sustainable and growing outdoor recreation economy for the benefit of all Americans. She is raising her family in Baltimore with as much time outside as possible.