WP3: Relationship between environments, behaviours and health

How does the environment affect our health?

WP3 will complement insights from WP1 and WP2 to examine the inter-relationships between the environment, health behaviours and health outcomes.

Using the anonymised long-term health records of thousands of people in SG100K, researchers will study the links between the environment and diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. By tracking changes in health markers over time – such as body fat, blood pressure and blood sugar – we can understand how the environment influences disease risk in Singapore’s multi-ethnic population.

Previous studies have mostly looked at single influences on health, but people are usually exposed to many influences at once. This research will examine how different environmental factors (for instance food landscape, green space or air pollution) interact with behaviours (such as diet quality or physical activity) to affect health outcomes.

Research objectives:

• – Examine the cross-sectional and prospective associations between environmental exposures and health outcomes
• – Investigate the independent and joint associations between environmental exposures, health behaviours and health outcomes

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme.