Dr. Qing Li (MD, Ph.D.) graduated from Shanxi Medical University and got a Ph.D. from Kagoshima University. He is a professor at Nippon Medical School, President of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine, Director of the Forest Therapy Society, Vice-President and Secretary-General of INFOM, Managing Vice Chairperson of Forest Health Maintenance Research of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Society. He has studied at Stanford University. Prof. Li is the world’s foremost expert in forest medicine and immunology. He received Society Award from the Japanese Society for Hygiene in Forest Medicine in 2021 and University Award from Nippon Medical School in Forest Medicine in 2011.
Some people study medicine. Some people study forests. Dr. Li studies forest medicine to find out all the ways in which walking in the forest can improve our well-being. He started forest medicine research (Shinrin-yoku/Forest bathing/Forest therapy) in 2004 and has published many articles on forest medicine in scientific journals.
The terms forest bathing and Shinrin-yoku in English were first defined in his paper (Li Q, et al. Forest bathing enhances human natural killer activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins. Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2007;20(2):3-8.)
He established the new science, Forest Medicine and published Forest Medicine in 2012 in the USA (https://novapublishers.com/shop/forest-medicine/). This book has been translated into Chinese and Korea.
His book: Shinrin-Yoku was published by Penguin Random House UK in 2018 (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308285/shinrin-yoku/9780241984857.html). The book also was published in the USA under the title of Forest Bathing in 2018 (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/579709/forest-bathing-by-dr-qing-li/). Forest Bathing ranked in the bestseller list in the USA).
Moreover, the book has been translated into 26 languages including 1. French, 2. Spanish, 3. Dutch, 4. German, 5. Italian, 6.Russian, 7. Portuguese, 8.Hungarian, 9. Czech, 10. Slovak, 11. Polish, 12. Bulgarian, 13. Finnish, 14. Chinese Complex, 15. Danish, 16. Swedish, 17. Estonian, 18. Vietnamese, 19. Romania, 20. Simplified Chinese, 21. Korean, 22. Slovenian, 23. Lithuanian, 24. Turkish, 25. Japanese, 26. Thai.
In 2019, he co-edited a new book: International Handbook of Forest Therapy published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.