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Understanding the major determinants of health

DASH health determinants challenge

Challenge leads

 

 

 

About

Health determinants encompass the range of factors that significantly influence the state of an individual's health. These determinants include social and economic conditions such as education, income, and living conditions, as well as elements in the physical environment such as climate, air quality, food environments, and access to clean water. These in turn influence our health behaviours (such as diet, exercise, and smoking) and psychological state, culminating in physiological and molecular disease processes within the body. Strengthening our understanding across this full spectrum of health determinants, as well as their interconnections, is crucial for developing effective health interventions and promoting societal health and wellbeing.

This challenge brings together interdisciplinary expertise, cutting-edge data science approaches and global collaboration, to examine the causes of diseases from the molecular to societal levels. Our researchers utilise a vast array of large-scale linked data including genetic information, medical imaging and health records, as well as social, commercial and climate data. Our research spans a wide spectrum of diseases, encompassing infectious to non-communicable conditions, and involves diverse research teams and populations groups across low-, middle- and high-income nations.

Areas of active research

  • The World Asthma Phenotypes (WASP) project is using multi-Omics biomarker analyses across five low-, middle- and high-income countries to define asthma subtypes and uncover their aetiological mechanisms.
  • Researchers at the Population Health Innovation Lab use big data on consumer food purchases to examine how changes in food marketing are influencing dietary quality in the UK.
  • The interdisciplinary FIEBRE project is applying Bayesian statistical approaches to understand the leading causes of fever in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
  • The Action Against Stunting Hub is integrating epigenetic, microbiome and biochemical information to advance understanding of the biological mechanisms of stunting among children in the first 1000 days of life.
  • The multi-partner SEDHI project uses linked health and social records from millions of people in Brazil and Ecuador to understand the social and economic determinants of preventable mortality.
  • Researchers at LSHTM, in collaboration with UCL, are exploring potential causes of the unexplained Chronic Kidney Disease epidemic in parts of Sri Lanka, Nicaragua and India by combining urinary proteomics with assessment of lifestyle, environmental and infectious disease exposures.
  • Combining dietary intake data with untargeted LC-MS metabolomics and serial vascular and body imaging data, the prospective APCAPS cohort in India aims to elucidate pathways linking dietary protein intake with cardiometabolic disease risk.
  • The CHAMNHA Project has been evaluating novel statistical methodologies for examining the effects of high temperatures on maternal and pregnancy outcomes in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.