{"id":14597,"date":"2024-12-09T15:35:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T08:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/?p=14597"},"modified":"2024-12-09T15:35:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T08:35:03","slug":"reimagining-our-urban-futures-health-driven-design-for-cities-hd4-research-programme-launches-in-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/?p=14597","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining our urban futures: Health-Driven Design for Cities (HD4) research programme launches in Singapore"},"content":{"rendered":"

SINGAPORE<\/span><\/span>, Dec. 9, 2024<\/span><\/span> \/PRNewswire\/ — December sees the launch of\u00a0Health-Driven Design for Cities (HD4<\/sub><\/span>)<\/b>, a groundbreaking Singapore<\/span>-based research collaboration seeking to discover how best to design urban environments that enhance the health of their residents.<\/p>\n

HD4<\/sub> is a partnership between Nanyang Technological University<\/span>,<\/a> Singapore<\/span> (NTU Singapore) the National University of Singapore<\/span> (NUS)<\/a>, and the University of Cambridge<\/span><\/a>. It has received funding from the National Research Foundation, Singapore<\/span><\/a>, and is hosted and co-led by the Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore<\/span> (CARES)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Health challenges of\u00a0urbanisation<\/b><\/p>\n

Cities around the world face increasing challenges in managing issues such as heat islands, noise and air pollution, stress, and limited access to healthy food and physical activity. These environmental factors contribute to a growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and cardiac disease. With urban populations growing rapidly around the world, there is an urgent need to rethink how cities are designed to promote health and well-being.<\/p>\n

Prof Nick Wareham<\/span>, HD4<\/sub> Programme Lead at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge<\/span> said:<\/p>\n

“As a city with ambitious plans for improving its citizens’ health, and a burgeoning research sector and rich health data, Singapore<\/span> offers a unique setting for this work. HD4<\/sub> will not only be studying the challenges of a growing city in the twenty-first century, but doing so in a city eager to implement strategies and tools to address them.”<\/p>\n

International, interdisciplinary team<\/b><\/p>\n

The HD4<\/sub> programme brings together a world-class team of epidemiologists, clinicians, scientists, engineers, and architects. They will investigate how individuals live and move in Singapore<\/span>, how the urban environment shapes their exposure to health risks, and how this influences their behaviour and health.<\/p>\n

A key element in this process is HD4<\/sub>‘s collaboration with Singapore’s<\/span> SG100K cohort study<\/a>, which is analysing the factors influencing NCDs in a representative and fully consented sample of 100,000 Singaporeans. All data that HD4<\/sub> will analyse is fully de-identified and securely processed.<\/p>\n

Professor of Cardiovascular Epidemiology (President’s Chair), John Chambers<\/span>,\u00a0Programme Lead of the HD4<\/sub> Programme and SG100K study at NTU Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, said:<\/p>\n

“By integrating environmental data with the health and behavioural data from SG100K, this research will deepen our understanding of how environmental and social factors shape health outcomes, and how we might change the built environment to reduce health risks and burdens.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Interlocking research for a healthier Singapore<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

HD4<\/sub> will undertake research in the following key areas:<\/p>\n