Our research program covers four topic areas
Community Environments
How does where you live shape your health? Community environments can significantly influence health, wellbeing, and health equity. Our work in this area focuses on understanding community-level determinants of health, access to resources, and the development and evaluation of practical community-based solutions to support health and promote health equity and wellbeing.
Public Policy and Wellbeing
How can we work to equitably impact the health of entire populations as well as vulnerable groups? Healthy public policy is a key public health strategy to achieve population health aims and address social and structural determinants of health. Our work in this area focuses on supporting the development, adaptation, implementation, and evaluation of policies in schools, workplaces, organizations, and across all levels of government that impact health or support wellbeing.
Play
What is the relationship between play and lifelong well-being? Play, and unstructured play in particular, builds a strong foundation for lifelong learning and healthy development. Our work in this area focuses on assessing play environments, understanding child, parental, and staff perceptions of play, and exploring facilitators and barriers to play in different settings. We also examine the links between different play types and physical activity.
Chronic Disease Prevention
How can we promote health and decrease the rate of chronic disease in your community? Chronic disease prevention is an important focus of health promotion efforts and healthy public policy. Our work in this area focuses on understanding the factors that facilitate chronic disease prevention and on the development and evaluation of healthy public policy.
