SPACE: Supportive environments for Physical and social Activity, healthy ageing and CognitivE health

空间：支持身体和社交活动、健康老龄化和认知健康的环境

• 批准号: ES/V016075/1
• 负责人: Ruth Hunter
• 金额: $ 205.04万
• 依托单位: Queen's University Belfast
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV016075%2F1
• 关键词: SPACE; Supportive; environments; Physical; social

The number of people worldwide living with dementia and cognitive impairment is increasing, mainly due to people living longer, so we want to figure out how where we live affects dementia and brain health as we get older. Some research suggests that where we live might influence our brain health. For example, poor air quality in towns and cities, can lead to a decline in brain health. As more of us now live in towns and cities, it is important that the environment where we live is scientifically designed and improved to maximise our brain health. The complex social and physical environments where we live make some people more vulnerable than others to developing cognitive impairment. In other words, the factors that account for who is most likely to develop cognitive ill-health due to the environment has less to do with 'how' we live and more to do with 'where' we live. We do not know how these factors interact to make urban environments a problem for brain health, nor which are the best policies and interventions for promoting healthy ageing and brain health for our poorest communities. Our project will provide evidence for policies and practices that provide supportive urban environments to promote healthy ageing, including promoting brain health. This could include using creative urban designs to support people to adopt and maintain healthier lifestyles such as being more active. However, this needs a strong evidence base with expert community advocates who can articulate how supportive urban environments can improve brain health. Our research has the following steps: 1. First, with the help of stakeholders, including those from business, industry, and local government, and a review of existing research, we will represent the relationships between our biology, our lifestyles and our environment in a diagram illustrating how they likely interact to affect brain health, because visual thinking can help stakeholders better identify possible intervention sweet-spots to improve brain health.2. By analysing data from over 8,000 older people in Northern Ireland, and linking this to information about where they live, such as the amount of air pollution, the toxins in soil, or how walkable their neighbourhoods are, we will explore how different environmental factors relate to brain health. 3. Next, we will collect new data on a subgroup of 1,000 older people including more in-depth measures of brain health and better measures of physical activity, using GPS devices worn around the waist that monitor our locations. This will allow us to explore how the urban environment influences our brain health. 4. Then, we will explore how aspects of our biology play a role in how the urban environment affects our brain health. 5. We will host workshops with local citizens to 'sense-check' our findings and co-develop promising prevention approaches. In these, we will explore the acceptability, affordability, feasibility and sustainability of new initiatives to improve the environmental influences on brain health. This might include, for example, policies on: expanding the car-free areas of the city to reduce air pollution; increasing the number of footpaths and cycle paths to encourage walking and cycling; improving public transport to reduce car use.As a result of our research we will produce:1. A map of the system in which our genes, lifestyle behaviours and urban environments interact to affect brain health, to help guide stakeholders towards policies and programmes that can improve brain health.2. An evidence base exploring how where we live affects our brain health. 3. A suite of potential policies and interventions to improve brain health and promote healthy ageing 'tested' (in terms of acceptability and feasibility) with older people, business, industry, policymakers and other stakeholders.

全球患有痴呆症和认知障碍的人数正在增加，这主要是因为人们活得更长，所以我们想弄清楚，随着我们年龄的增长，我们居住的地方会如何影响痴呆症和大脑健康。一些研究表明，我们居住的地方可能会影响我们的大脑健康。例如，城镇糟糕的空气质量会导致大脑健康下降。随着我们越来越多的人生活在城镇，科学地设计和改善我们生活的环境，最大限度地提高我们的大脑健康，这一点很重要。我们生活的复杂的社会和物理环境使一些人比其他人更容易患上认知障碍。换句话说，解释谁最有可能因环境而患上认知不良的因素与我们的生活方式关系不大，更多的是与我们住在哪里有关。我们不知道这些因素如何相互作用，使城市环境成为大脑健康的问题，也不知道哪些政策和干预措施是促进我们最贫穷社区的健康老龄化和大脑健康的最佳政策和干预措施。我们的项目将为提供支持性城市环境以促进健康老龄化的政策和做法提供证据，包括促进大脑健康。这可能包括使用创造性的城市设计来支持人们采用和保持更健康的生活方式，例如更加活跃。然而，这需要有专家社区倡导者的强有力的证据基础，他们能够阐明支持性城市环境如何改善大脑健康。我们的研究有以下几个步骤：1.首先，在利益相关者的帮助下，包括来自商业、工业和地方政府的利益相关者，以及对现有研究的回顾，我们将在一张图表中展示我们的生物学、我们的生活方式和我们的环境之间的关系，说明它们可能如何相互作用来影响大脑健康，因为视觉思维可以帮助利益相关者更好地识别可能的干预甜蜜点，以改善大脑健康。通过分析北爱尔兰8000多名老年人的数据，并将其与他们生活在哪里的信息联系起来，例如空气污染量、土壤中的毒素，或者他们的社区有多适合步行，我们将探索不同的环境因素如何与大脑健康相关。3.接下来，我们将收集1000名老年人的新数据，包括更深入的大脑健康测量和更好的体力活动测量，使用腰部佩戴的GPS设备监测我们的位置。这将使我们能够探索城市环境如何影响我们的大脑健康。4.然后，我们将探索我们的生物学方面如何在城市环境如何影响我们的大脑健康方面发挥作用。5.我们将与当地公民一起举办研讨会，对我们的发现进行‘感官检查’，并共同开发有希望的预防方法。在这些研究中，我们将探讨改善环境对大脑健康影响的新举措的可接受性、可负担性、可行性和可持续性。例如，这可能包括以下政策：扩大城市的无车区域以减少空气污染；增加人行道和自行车道的数量以鼓励步行和骑自行车；改善公共交通以减少汽车的使用。作为我们研究的结果，我们将制作：1.我们的基因、生活方式行为和城市环境相互作用影响大脑健康的系统图，帮助指导利益相关者制定能够改善大脑健康的政策和计划。探索我们居住的地方如何影响我们的大脑健康的证据基础。3.一套改善大脑健康和促进健康老龄化的潜在政策和干预措施在老年人、工商界、政策制定者和其他利益攸关方中进行了“测试”(就可接受性和可行性而言)。

项目成果

Using Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) to inform the development of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)

• DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckad160.451
• 发表时间: 2023-10-24
• 期刊: The European Journal of Public Health

Planet B?

B星球？

• 发表时间: 2024
• 作者: McLaughlin Danny

Heavy metal (PTE) ecotoxicology, data review: Traditional vs. a compositional approach.

重金属 (PTE) 生态毒理学，数据审查：传统方法与组合方法。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145246
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: The Science of the total environment
• 作者: Mullineaux ST

No Planet B?

没有B星吗？

• 发表时间: 2024
• 作者: Hunter Ruth

Healthy Aging: A Deep Meta-Class Sequence Model to Integrate Intelligence in Digital Twin

• DOI: 10.1109/jtehm.2023.3274357
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine
• 影响因子: 3.4
• 作者: Muhammad Fahim;Vishal Sharma;R. Hunter;T. Duong