Approved Research

Environmental, behavioural and social well-being: A holistic approach to understand health and longevity

Lay summary

We aim to investigate how behavioural (e.g., physical activity, diet, sleep), environmental (e.g., social deprivation, green space), and social (e.g., loneliness, social isolation) characteristics independently and jointly relate to chronic disease, health care use, and longevity. A healthy lifestyle is traditionally defined based on behavioural risk factors, such as smoking, diet and physical activity. Emerging evidence suggests that environmental and social characteristics are likely to affect risk of chronic disease and mortality beyond influencing behavioural risk factors. We plan to take a holistic approach to comprehensively study the role of these different types of risk factors on health, well-being, and longevity.

Public health impact: Our proposed project has the potential to provide comprehensive and rigorous evidence on modifiable risk factors of health and longevity. Such evidence can have an important knowledge impact by informing novel research methodologies, and a health impact, through informing interventions, programs and guidelines, and a social impact for educating the general public.