Hume, C.Grieger, J.A.Kalamkarian, A.D'Onise, K.Smithers, L.G.2025-07-302025-07-302022BMC Public Health, 2022; 22(1):1247-1-1247-661471-24581471-2458https://hdl.handle.net/2440/146430Background: We systematically reviewed the effects of community gardens on physical and psychosocial health, health behaviors and community outcomes. Methods: Quantitative studies that examined associations of health, psychosocial or community outcomes with community gardens were included in the review. Studies up to December 2020 were captured from searches of Medline, Web of Science, PsycInfo, EBSCOHost and CAB Abstracts. Data were extracted and study quality including risk of bias was examined. Results: There were 53 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Studies examining associations between community gardens and nutrition or food security were most frequently reported (k = 23). Other factors examined for associations with community gardens were health (k = 16), psychosocial (k = 16) and community outcomes (k = 7). Effects appeared positive for fruit and vegetable intake, some psychosocial and community outcomes, but mixed for physical health outcomes. Evidence quality overall was low. Conclusions: Community gardening was associated with higher fruit and vegetable intake, positive psychosocial and community outcomes, but poor evidence quality suggests the effects of community gardening may be overestimated.en© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Community gardens; Diet; Physical activity; Psychosocial; Health; BackgroundHumansFruitVegetablesDietGardeningGardensJournal article10.1186/s12889-022-13591-1615717Hume, C. [0000-0002-5719-3232]Grieger, J.A. [0000-0003-1515-948X]Kalamkarian, A. [0000-0002-8609-2457]Smithers, L.G. [0000-0002-6585-7836]