Perceived health state and willingness to pay for outdoor recreation: an analysis of forest recreationists and hunters

ABSTRACT

Outdoor recreation encompasses an array of activities carried out in a multitude of envrionments, including forests. An important motive for participating is the possible mental and physical health benefits gained. Currently, there is an absence of studies which have examined the economic aspects of the health effects from outdoor recreation. The main aim of this study was to use the contingent valuation method to compare the willingness to pay (WTP) for avoiding a hypothetical suspension of outdoor recreation among forest recreationists and hunters in Sweden. The second aim was to analyze the determinants of this WTP change, with emphasis on perceived health states obtained by means of a visual analogue scale. The results showed that changes in health state due to participation as well as visiting frequency were significant predictors of WTP. These findings suggest that health state measures may be useful for assessing health outcomes of outdoor recreation and associated WTP.

KEYWORDS:

• Health
• outdoor recreation
• forests
• contingent valuation
• visual analogue scale

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Johan Norman, Skogsstyrelsen, and Professor Per-Olov Johansson, Stockholm School of Economics, for valuable advice. Comments from seminar participants at the Centre for Environmental and Resource Economics (CERE), Umeå, Sweden, and the 17th Ulvön Conference Ulvön Conference on Environmental Economics Ulvön, Sweden, are also acknowledged. The authors are solely responsible for the contents of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by financial support from the research programs, “Sustainable Management in Hardwood Forests”, “Broadleaves for the Future” and “Adaptive Management of Fish and Wildlife”.