SPACE: Supportive environments for Physical and social Activity, healthy ageing and CognitivE health
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Centre for Public Health
Abstract
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.
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.
Organisations
- Queen's University Belfast (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Michigan (Collaboration)
- Translink (Belfast) (Collaboration)
- Administrative Data Research Centre for Northern Ireland (Collaboration)
- University of Southern Denmark (Collaboration)
- Ordnance Survey (Collaboration)
- EastSide Partnership (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- BELFAST CITY COUNCIL (Collaboration)
- Australian Catholic University (Collaboration)
- University of Southern California (Collaboration)
- ALZHEIMER'S SOCIETY (Collaboration)
- World Health Organization (WHO) (Collaboration)
- AGE UK (Collaboration)
- The Paul Hogarth Company (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Washington University in St. Louis (Collaboration)
- Nerve Centre (Collaboration)
- Armagh Observatory (Collaboration)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (United Kingdom) (Collaboration)
- National Institute for Health Research (Collaboration)
- Trinity College Dublin (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST (Collaboration)
- Public Health Agency (PHA) (Collaboration)
- Belfast Healthy Cities (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Translink (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- AgeNI - Northern Ireland (Project Partner)
- Alpha Housing (Project Partner)
- Abbeyfield and Wesley (Project Partner)
- Public Health Agency (Project Partner)
- Alzheimer's Society (Project Partner)
- Commissioner for Older People for NI (Project Partner)
- Anaeko (Project Partner)
- Global Brain Health Institute (Project Partner)
- Australian Catholic University (Project Partner)
- Belfast City Council (Project Partner)
- Department for the Economy (Project Partner)
- BrainWaveBank (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (Sweden) (Project Partner)
- Department of Finance (Project Partner)
- Belfast Health Development Unit (Project Partner)
- Aecom (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (Project Partner)
- Economic and Social Research Council (Project Partner)
Publications
Avila-Palencia I
(2023)
Using Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) to inform the development of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)
in European Journal of Public Health
Avila-Palencia I
(2022)
Mapping the complex systems that connects the urban environment to cognitive decline in adults aged 50 years and older: a group model building study
in The Lancet
Fahim M
(2023)
Healthy Aging: A Deep Meta-Class Sequence Model to Integrate Intelligence in Digital Twin
in IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine
Glover S
(2024)
Exploring the epigenome to identify biological links between the urban environment and neurodegenerative disease: an evidence review
in Cities & Health
Hill C
(2022)
Harnessing the Full Potential of Multi-Omic Analyses to Advance the Study and Treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease.
in Frontiers in nephrology
Hunter RF
(2022)
Healthy Active Aging Can Help Urban Populations Be More Resilient to Changing Environments.
in Journal of physical activity & health
Hunter Ruth
(2024)
No Planet B?
Küçükali H
(2023)
Application of the Syndemic Theory and Analysis of Synergy
in European Journal of Public Health
McLaughlin Danny
(2024)
Planet B?
Mullineaux ST
(2021)
Heavy metal (PTE) ecotoxicology, data review: Traditional vs. a compositional approach.
in The Science of the total environment
| Title | Ageing in Space |
| Description | Co-development of a two part video series about the importance of protecting where we live for human health and animal health in collaboration with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium and QUB Astrophysics Research Centre. The project is an opportunity to leave a legacy with the Planetarium to continue to raise awareness about the importance of protecting where we live. The materials (videos/comic/children's book) will explore the ideas of alternative habitable planets to Earth such as Mars and exoplanets. With a core message that there is 'no Planet B' and we need to look after Earth for human health and animal health. National and International (Ireland, Scotland, England, USA) visitors to the SPACE project have already made requests to emulate our dissemination and engagement products both in their own countries and for large research projects based in India |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The film was first shown in February 2024 at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (https://www.armagh.space/planetarium), during the SPACE projects final event to showcase the work and partnerships of the award. The film will be left as a legacy piece and form part of the Planetarium's suite of shows. The film has also been shown at two Northern Ireland Science Festival Events (16th & 24th February 2024 - NISF 10th Anniversary Programme - https://nisciencefestival.com/events/no-planet-b). These were public events, the first held in the MAC Theatre in central Belfast for the general public with mainly family attendance of all ages. The second event was in the Foyle Arena, County Londonderry for a predominately schools based audience, both with free admittance. We hired the Armagh Planetarium portable dome for both events, accommodating approx 25/30 persons per show with 7-10 shows per event, hosted on our behalf by astronomer Dr Rok Nezic. Feedback on each day from attendees was extremely positive. The film is available to view on the SPACE website. To accompany the films, we designed a 'marvel' style comic (teenage/adult readership) Planet B? and a children's book - No Planet B? |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/VideosandFactsheets/ |
| Title | Factsheets |
| Description | 8 x Environmental health fact sheets designed to accompany information videos printed onto large correx display boards and cubes |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | - Poster type correx boards hung as artwork at the Festival of Social Science 'Walkshop' event at Connswater Greenway - November 2023 - Cubes made of correx, mounted on wooden stakes and 'planted' at the Astro Park, Armagh Observatory and Planetarium to coincide with the Northern Ireland Science Festival 2024, with 24hr public access. The factsheet cubes will remain in place for an indefinite period |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/VideosandFactsheets/ |
| Title | Is there actually a Planet B? |
| Description | Co-development of a two part video series about the importance of protecting where we live for human health and animal health in collaboration with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium and QUB Astrophysics Research Centre. The project is an opportunity to leave a legacy with the Planetarium to continue to raise awareness about the importance of protecting where we live. The materials (videos/comic/children's book) will explore the ideas of alternative habitable planets to Earth such as Mars and exoplanets. With a core message that there is 'no Planet B' and we need to look after Earth for human health and animal health. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The film was first shown in February 2024 at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (https://www.armagh.space/planetarium), during the SPACE projects final event to showcase the work and partnerships of the award. The film will be left as a legacy piece and form part of the Planetarium's suite of shows. The film has also been shown at two Northern Ireland Science Festival Events (16th & 24th February 2024 - NISF 10th Anniversary Programme - https://nisciencefestival.com/events/no-planet-b). These were public events, the first held in the MAC Theatre in central Belfast for the general public with mainly family attendance of all ages. The second event was in the Foyle Arena, County Londonderry for a predominately schools based audience, both with free admittance. We hired the Armagh Planetarium portable dome for both events, accommodating approx 25/30 persons per show with 7-10 shows per event, hosted on our behalf by astronomer Dr Rok Nezic. Feedback on each day from attendees was extremely positive. The film is available to view on the SPACE website. To accompany the films, we designed a 'marvel' style comic (teenage/adult readership) Planet B? and a children's book - No Planet B? National and International (Ireland, Scotland, England, USA) visitors to the SPACE project have already made requests to emulate our dissemination products both in their own countries and for large research projects based in India |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/VideosandFactsheets/ |
| Title | No Planet B? |
| Description | Children's book to accompany video series on the importance of protecting where we live for human health and animal health in collaboration with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium and QUB Astrophysics Research Centre. The product is an opportunity to leave a legacy to continue to raise awareness about the importance of protecting where we live. The materials (videos/comic/children's book) will explore the ideas of alternative habitable planets to Earth such as Mars and exoplanets. With a core message that there is 'no Planet B' and we need to look after Earth for human health and animal health. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The book was launched in February 2024 at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (https://www.armagh.space/planetarium), during the SPACE projects final event to showcase the work and partnerships of the award. It has been left as a legacy and education resource with the Planetarium. The book was also given out at two Northern Ireland Science Festival Events (16th & 24th February 2024 - NISF 10th Anniversary Programme - https://nisciencefestival.com/events/no-planet-b). These were public events, the first held in the MAC Theatre in central Belfast for the general public with mainly family attendance of all ages. The second event was in the Foyle Arena, County Londonderry for a predominately schools based audience, both with free admittance. We hired the Armagh Planetarium portable dome for both events to showcase the accompanying video series, accommodating approx 25/30 persons per show with 7-10 shows per event, hosted on our behalf by astronomer Dr Rok Nezic. Feedback on each day from attendees was extremely positive. The book has also been reported to already have been used by children across Ireland for World Book Day in their respective schools, and further requests have been received from England and Sweden. The digital format of the book will be made available later in the year. National and International (Ireland, Scotland, England, USA) visitors to the SPACE project have already made requests to emulate our dissemination and engagement products both in their own countries and for large research projects based in India |
| Title | Planet B? |
| Description | Young adults/adults 'Marvel' style comic to accompany video series on the importance of protecting where we live for human health and animal health in collaboration with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium and QUB Astrophysics Research Centre. The product is an opportunity to leave a legacy to raise awareness about the importance of protecting where we live. The materials (videos/comic/children's book) explore the ideas of alternative habitable planets to Earth such as Mars and exoplanets. With a core message that there is 'no Planet B' and we need to look after Earth for human health and animal health. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The comic, endorsed by Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell who appears as one of the characters, was launched in February 2024 at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (https://www.armagh.space/planetarium), during the SPACE projects final event to showcase the work and partnerships of the award. It has been left as a legacy and education resource with the Planetarium. The book was also given out at two Northern Ireland Science Festival Events (16th & 24th February 2024 - NISF 10th Anniversary Programme - https://nisciencefestival.com/events/no-planet-b). These were public events, the first held in the MAC Theatre in central Belfast for the general public with mainly family attendance of all ages. The second event was in the Foyle Arena, County Londonderry for a predominately schools based audience, both with free admittance. We hired the Armagh Planetarium portable dome for both events to showcase the accompanying video series, accommodating approx 25/30 persons per show with 7-10 shows per event, hosted on our behalf by astronomer Dr Rok Nezic. Feedback on each day from attendees was extremely positive. The book has also been reported to already have been used by children in Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland for World Book Day in their respective schools, and further requests have been received from England and Sweden. The digital format of the comic will be made available later in the year. |
| Title | Planet B? and No Planet B? |
| Description | Branded colouring-in pages, with additional images relating to the Planet B and No Planet B book and comic for engagement |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Product used at: - two Northern Ireland Science Festival events in 2024 - 'Making Belfast a Playful City' - a social innovation challenge to transform a budding city area into a vibrant community space in partnership with Belfast City Council and the Housing Executive (http://go.qub.ac.uk/makingbelfast) requests from received from members of the public in Sweden, England and local schools and community groups - National and International (Ireland, Scotland, England, USA) visitors to the SPACE project have already made requests to emulate our dissemination and engagement products both in their own countries and for large research projects based in India This product will be made available for download from the SPACE website later in the year |
| Title | Planet B? and No Planet B? |
| Description | Set of four Stickers - Branded images from the Planet B and No Planet B book and comic for engagement |
| Type Of Art | Image |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Product used at: - two Northern Ireland Science Festival events in 2024 - 'Making Belfast a Playful City' - a social innovation challenge to transform a budding city area into a vibrant community space in partnership with Belfast City Council and the Housing Executive (http://go.qub.ac.uk/makingbelfast) - requests from received from members of the public in Sweden, England and local schools and community groups - National and International (Ireland, Scotland, England, USA) visitors to the SPACE project have already made requests to emulate our dissemination and engagement products both in their own countries and for large research projects based in India |
| Title | SPACE Video Series |
| Description | Suite of five short information films covering the work of the SPACE project on - Noise and Light Pollution, Green and Blue Spaces, Urban Planning, Air Pollution, Soil Pollution, Planetary Health and Climate Change and Epigenetics |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | Showcasing the project to other organisations ie: government, local council, community, education, health and academia. Also helped leverage additional funding for associated projects and dissemination |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/VideosandFactsheets/ |
| Description | ** 27 paper proposals and analysis plans have been developed by all WPs and approved. These will continue to be worked on and completed in the next quarter. We have 4 papers currently under review with high impact journals. ** Two reports have been published: knowledge exchange and policy report: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Filestore/Knowledge%20Exchange%20Report%20FINAL_010224.pdf and https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Filestore/Leadership%20for%20healthy%20people%20and%20planet_RGBCOMPRESSED.pdf ** To work with partners to complete the 3 commissioned pieces of work: Age NI, The Paul Hogarth Company, Studio Idir and EastSide Partnership. **To continue to promote the use of the SPACE geoportal - this will be supported via an application to the EPSRC IAA. |
| Exploitation Route | Emerging impact 1: We have completed the policy report which was launched on 8th February 2024. Discussions are taking place with the Department for Health around the development of a Green Paper highlighting the important role that a healthy environment can play in supporting healthy ageing and preventing dementia. Emerging impact 2: Following the policy workshops and series of 1-1 conversations with practitioners, we have commissioned 3 pieces of work which several of our partners. These include: 1) ageing in urban, rural and coastal communities with Age NI; 2) good practice case studies of healthy ageing environments with The Paul Hogarth Company; 3) consultation on accessibility and inclusion challenges for green and blue spaces with Stuio Idir and EastSide Partnership. Emerging impact 3: We have submitted an application to the EPSRC IAA to further develop case studies and the functionality of the geoportal. Emerging impact 4: We currently have 4 papers under peer-review with high impact journals. |
| Sectors | Environment Healthcare Government Democracy and Justice Transport |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/ |
| Description | Emerging impact 1: We have completed the policy report which was launched on 8th February 2024. Discussions are taking place with the Department for Health around the development of a Green Paper highlighting the important role that a healthy environment can play in supporting healthy ageing and preventing dementia. Emerging impact 2: Following the policy workshops and series of 1-1 conversations with practitioners, we have commissioned 3 pieces of work which several of our partners. These include: 1) ageing in urban, rural and coastal communities with Age NI; 2) good practice case studies of healthy ageing environments with The Paul Hogarth Company; 3) consultation on accessibility and inclusion challenges for green and blue spaces with Stuio Idir and EastSide Partnership. Emerging impact 3: We have submitted an application to the EPSRC IAA to further develop case studies and the functionality of the geoportal. Emerging impact 4: We currently have 4 papers under peer-review with high impact journals. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | SG - Make Belfast Playful project |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Impact | Numerous postgraduates involved in Make Belfast Playful said they appreciated the need of discussing the health impacts of environmental health and nature-based solutions from hearing about the SPACE projects and reading numerous of our output documents. Questions and activities incorporating the impact of the environment and health were included in the public consultation. Outputs from the public consultation included resident's expressing how they feel being within urban green and blue spaces and how they may benefit their health and so should be included in the project design for regenerating the site of interest around their homes. The next step in the project is to come up with the project designs which will be presented to the local council and housing executive to consider ideas which could be funded. The project design will include mention of how the health of residents and the environment may be enhanced from nature interventions. |
| Description | Department for the Economy PhD studentship - leveraged (mental ill-health) |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2023 |
| End | 09/2026 |
| Description | ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) |
| Amount | £20,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2021 |
| End | 02/2024 |
| Description | Expanding the Gateway Research Infrastructure on Exposome Studies for the Health and Retirement Study and the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol International Network of Studies |
| Amount | £2,000,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | National Institutes of Health (NIH) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 08/2022 |
| End | 08/2024 |
| Description | Northern Ireland Kidney Research Fund Fellowships via QUB Foundation |
| Amount | £600,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Northern Ireland Kidney Research Fund |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2024 |
| End | 07/2027 |
| Description | PhD studentship [CH] |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | PhD studentship [air quality] |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | PhD studentship [data science] |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | PhD studentship [epigenetics] |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | Transforming Diabetic Kidney Disease Care: Harnessing Integrative Multi-Omics Analysis for Precision Diagnosis and Management |
| Amount | £699,809 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | Application ID: 10081229 |
| Organisation | Innovate UK |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2023 |
| End | 12/2025 |
| Title | Physical activity and GPS dataset |
| Description | This dataset includes raw data for 292 participants (as of 8/3/2023 - data collection ongoing), which includes both accelerometer and GPS data for each participant over a consecutive seven-day period. Specifically, this dataset includes GPS data including latitude and longitude for every 15 seconds during the seven day period. Regarding the accelerometer data , this dataset has raw, unprocessed data collected at 15 second epochs for the seven days of use. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We intend on processing and merging the dataset with (a) environmental and urban environment variables, and (b) cognitive measurements from the HCAP and NICOLA studies to determine whether environmental variables (including urban environment) influence physical activity levels, and in turn, whether these environmental variables and physical activity are mediators of cognitive decline in a population of people over 65 years of age. |
| Title | Processed physical activity and transportation behaviour data |
| Description | This dataset comprises variables related to physical activity (e.g. moderate to vigorous physical activity minutes per day) and transportation (e.g. mode of transportation) behaviours that are calculated using the raw accelerometer and GPS measurements of 362 participants. We used open-sourced software (HABITUS, GGIR and hbGPS) to calculate relevant metrics. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This dataset will enable researchers using the NICOLA cohort (HCAP sub-cohort) to investigate objectively measured physical activity and transportation behaviours which were only available in self-reported format previously. |
| Title | SPACE Geoportal |
| Description | As part of the SPACE (Supportive Environments for Physical and Social Activity, Healthy Ageing and Cognitive Health) research project, over the past year, in collaboration with OSNI/Land and Property Services, we have been developing a platform for accessing geospatial data across Northern Ireland - the SPACE geoportal. The geoportal can be used for exploring and downloading Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data relating to environmental variables which influence health and healthy ageing in our environment. Our open access geoportal resource houses 80+ datasets from across Northern Ireland, including land cover, climate, health, infrastructure and many more. The geoportal will be a useful resource for those working across research, academia, and policy in the area of health and the environment, and can be used to explore, discover, download and visualise spatial data across Northern Ireland. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | We co-developed this open, online, secure, dynamic urban environment geo-portal to support and facilitate future collaborative working with policymakers, industry, research and communities. This initiative was built on >10 years of close collaboration with partners from policy (e.g. Land and Property Services, the Departments for Infrastructure, Environment and Communities), industry (e.g. Anaeko) and practice (e.g. local urban regeneration practices such as EastSide Partnership). External colleagues have demonstrated both interest and use. |
| URL | https://space-geoportal-queensub.hub.arcgis.com/ |
| Title | SPACE linked environment dataset |
| Description | We have derived and curated over 300 variables on environmental variables linked to the NICOLA wave 1 and wave 2 cohort. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This dataset is part of the NIH Gateway to Global Ageing Data international platform. |
| Title | Systems map of cognitive health influences |
| Description | We have developed a systems map exploring the influencing factors on cognitive decline with the SPACE research team. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The map will be published as part of an upcoming publication. We have made the map available to all SPACE research team to inform hypothesis generation and analysis plans. |
| Description | Age NI - 2023/2024 |
| Organisation | Age UK |
| Department | Age NI |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are working in partnership with Age NI to conduct research exploring the challenges and opportunities that older people face in terms of healthy ageing in rural and coastal communities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Age NI are leading on recruitment, conducting the focus groups and preliminary analysis of data. |
| Impact | A report is due for publication by June 2024. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Eye health group, QUB |
| Organisation | Queen's University Belfast |
| Department | Centre for Public Health (CPH) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed the idea to collect data on visual acuity to help interpret the physical activity data in the SPACE project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners are experts in collecting data on visual acuity using Smartphones and apps. |
| Impact | We have develop a SOP to collect data on visual acuity as part of the WP 3 data collection on SPACE. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Horizon 2020 UPSURGE Project -Investigating use of nature-based solutions in urban areas for pollution alleviation and climate change mitigation |
| Organisation | Belfast City Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Jennifer McKinley (Co-I SPACE) is principal investigator on UPSURGE project with partners Belfast City Council. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key performance indicators within the UPSURGE project are the impact of nature-based solutions on socio-economic diversity, air quality and health. Collaboration between the projects with will assist in the exploration of exposure analyses on how the local environment and pollutants synergistically affect our health outcomes. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | NIH supplement - Gateway to Global Ageing Data |
| Organisation | University of Michigan |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developing a NIH supplement grant that extends the work of SPACE to the US and India. Our team provides the expertise in the urban environment and dementia risk. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners lead the Gateway for Global Ageing Data, and provide access to the US and India data. |
| Impact | We are in the process of drafting a NIH supplement grant. This is due to be submitted in May 2022. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | NIH supplement - Gateway to Global Ageing Data |
| Organisation | University of Southern California |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developing a NIH supplement grant that extends the work of SPACE to the US and India. Our team provides the expertise in the urban environment and dementia risk. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners lead the Gateway for Global Ageing Data, and provide access to the US and India data. |
| Impact | We are in the process of drafting a NIH supplement grant. This is due to be submitted in May 2022. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Administrative Data Research Centre for Northern Ireland |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Age UK |
| Department | Age NI |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Alzheimer's Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Australian Catholic University |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Belfast City Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Belfast Healthy Cities |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | EastSide Partnership |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Public Health Agency (PHA) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE - healthy ageing partners |
| Organisation | Trinity College Dublin |
| Country | Ireland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We led the development of the SPACE research grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important expertise on health, data and ageing. |
| Impact | The successful application to the ESRC for research funding. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE No Planet B? comic 2024 |
| Organisation | Armagh Observatory and Planetarium |
| Department | Armagh Observatory |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We worked in partnership with Revolve Comics and AOP to develop a comic aimed at 12-14 years olds to promote the role of space, astronomy, healthy ageing and the environment. |
| Collaborator Contribution | AOP were involved in helping to develop the script and dissemination through school outreach and public events. Revolve Comics led the writing of the script and artwork. |
| Impact | We published a comic called No Planet B? in February 2024 (see outputs for details). |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | SPACE Planet B children's book - 2024 |
| Organisation | Nerve Centre |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We worked in partnership with the Nerve Centre to develop a children's book No Planet B aimed at young children aged 4-5 years old. The book uses space and astronomy to discuss climate change. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Nerve Centre provided the artwork and printing. |
| Impact | We published the book No Planet B in February 2024 (see outputs for details). |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | SPACE geoportal |
| Organisation | Ordnance Survey |
| Department | Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We worked in partnership with Ordnance Survey NI (OSNI) to co-develop a geoportal which provides access to over 80 environmental datasets in Northern Ireland. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We employed an embedded researcher from OSNI who worked with the SPCE team for 12 months to develop the geoportal. OSNI provided specific technical expertise around geoportal development, GIS and knowledge of relevant data sources. |
| Impact | We have released the SPACE geoportal in October 2023: https://space-geoportal-queensub.hub.arcgis.com/ |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | SPACE partners - industry and business sector |
| Organisation | The Paul Hogarth Company |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Our team led the development of the grant application and leading the research programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important pathways to impact policy and practice from our research findings. |
| Impact | To date, our partners have taken part is a stakeholder survey and been involved in discussions re: research impact. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE partners - industry and business sector |
| Organisation | Thermo Fisher Scientific |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Our team led the development of the grant application and leading the research programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important pathways to impact policy and practice from our research findings. |
| Impact | To date, our partners have taken part is a stakeholder survey and been involved in discussions re: research impact. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE partners - industry and business sector |
| Organisation | Translink (Belfast) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Our team led the development of the grant application and leading the research programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provide important pathways to impact policy and practice from our research findings. |
| Impact | To date, our partners have taken part is a stakeholder survey and been involved in discussions re: research impact. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE video series |
| Organisation | Armagh Observatory and Planetarium |
| Department | Armagh Observatory |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We worked in partnership with Thought-TV and Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) to develop a video series from the SPACE project, promoting the role of space in healthy ageing and planetary health. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Thought-TV filmed and edited the videos, and were involved in script development. AOP were involved in script development and included in the the videos. They are also involved in disseminating the videos through school outreach and public events. |
| Impact | A series of videos have been developed: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/VideosandFactsheets/ |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | The Paul Hogarth Company - 2023/2024 |
| Organisation | The Paul Hogarth Company |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We are working in partnership with The Paul Hogarth Company to co-develop design solutions to support healthy ageing in rural and coastal environments and communities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners are providing contributions including leading community consultations and engagement activities, and co-developing design solutions. |
| Impact | The collaboration will produce a report and set of design solutions by June 2024. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | University of Southern Denmark |
| Organisation | University of Southern Denmark |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our team led the development of the SPACE grant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Active collaborator assisting the SPACE team on WP3 (physical activity and GPS data collection). Prof Schipperijn is working with Ruth and Claire to determine the most appropriate methodological processes that will be implemented to collect physical activity and location data in the sample of older adults. |
| Impact | We have determined the most appropriate methodological processes that will be implemented to collect physical activity and location data in the sample of older adults. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | WHO Age Friendly Cities collaboration |
| Organisation | World Health Organization (WHO) |
| Country | Global |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We provided expertise regarding stakeholder network analysis to the WHO to investigate the collaborative networks as part of the WHO Age Friendly Cities Network. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners provided the funding to support the stakeholder network analysis research and report development. |
| Impact | This has resulted in a WHO report and manual to guide stakeholder network analysis. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Washington University at St Louis |
| Organisation | Washington University in St Louis |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Led the development of the SPACE project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | New machine learning methods for analysing exposure data for GPS and physical activity data using Python. |
| Impact | Discussion re: new machine learning methods for analysing exposure data for GPS and physical activity data. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | involve - policy workshops - Sept 2023 |
| Organisation | National Institute for Health Research |
| Department | INVOLVE |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We worked in partnership with involve to conduct a series of 3 policy workshops with involve in September 2023. |
| Collaborator Contribution | involve led on the development of the methodology for the policy workshops, workshop facilitation, analysis and drafting the report. |
| Impact | We have published a policy report: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#space-policy-workshop-report-2048885-4. The work was also presented at the SPACE conference on 8th February 2024. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | 'Creating societal change through inspiration, innovation and impact' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Event attended as part of longevity week. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | A presentation at the BLAST (Building Links in Ageing Science and Translation) Early Research Career Summer School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A presentation at the BLAST (Building Links in Ageing Science and Translation) Early Research Career Summer School entitled "Accelerometry, GPS and GIS". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | A presentation at the Pint of Science event in Belfast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A presentation at the Pint of Science event in Belfast entitled "Physical and social activity, healthy ageing, and the environment". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Advisory group meeting: Gateway to Global Ageing Data [5-7 Dec 2022] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Ruth Hunter and Bernadette McGuinness were invited to be members of the NIH Gateway to Global Ageing advisory group. A series of working group meetings were held from 5-7 Dec 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | An Introduction to Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for Causal Inference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The online training on Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for Causal Inference, conducted in May 2023, consisted of two sessions designed to introduce and apply the use of DAGs in causal inference research, facilitated by two researchers (IAP & HK). The first session covered the basics of causality, key concepts of DAGs, and practical exercises aiming to equip participants with foundational knowledge and skills. The second session focused on applying this knowledge through discussion and analysis of participant-submitted DAGs, enhancing understanding and peer learning. The training aimed to improve participants' ability to design studies and analyse data to answer causal research questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#an-introduction-to-directed-acyclic-graphs-dags-for-cau... |
| Description | Association for Geographic Information 23/06/2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation entitled: "Geospatial factors in cognitive health outcomes" was given to introduce the broader GIS community of NI and beyond to the SPACE project, its research rationale, scope, objectives, and intended outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | CLOSER magazine [May 2021] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A magazine article about the SPACE project in CLOSER magazine. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.closer.ac.uk/news-opinion/blog/memory-matters-in-nicola/ |
| Description | Contribution to NCUB issue |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited to provide information on SPACE project activities for the National Centre for Universities and Business edition: "Adapting to the Age of Ageing - Showcasing Collaboration" published in Jan 2024 - featured on pages 6-7 https://www.ncub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/5253_N1-1.pdf |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Developing International Collaborations in Healthy Ageing Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I attended a workshop entitled "Developing International Collaborations in Healthy Ageing Research" at the Canadian Association on Gerontology Conference, 2022. This workshop intended to: build connections; enable engagement with international researchers, policy makers and practitioners; discuss does place matter?; highlight how to lead and manage international research teams; and to reflect on the role of mentors and mentoring. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Digital Leaders Event [16 June 2021] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited speaker across public sector, private sector, and academia, to present on each of the 4 grand challenges; opportunity to showcase SPACE |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Distinguished Lecture Keynote at IAMG2023, Trondheim, Norway |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Distinguished Lecture Keynote at International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) annual conference IAMG2023, Trondheim, Norway. Talk title: Spatial Analytics for Geoforensics and Geohealth |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.iamgconferences.org/iamg2023/keynote.php#IdKeyMcKinley |
| Description | ESRC Festival of Social Science: Walk-shop on the Greenway |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | Event part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science programme, targeted towards older adults. The event began with a guided walk of CS Lewis Square and the Connswater Community Greenway and was followed by a short presentation on SPACE, and a presentation of the SPACE fact-sheets and videos. Members of our Healthy Ageing Advisory Group were invited and other attendees included members of a regular older person's walking group on the Greenway. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | ESRC Festival of Social Sciences NI 2023/ 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ESRC Festival of Social Sciences NI 2023/ 2024: How do urban spaces play a role in shaping sustainable cities? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/public-engagement/public-engagement-esrc/festival-of-social-science/ |
| Description | Epigenomics workshop - three countries - harmonisation of DNAm for cross-country / multicentre comparisons |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Workshop bringing together the teams working on epigenetic data in three global longitudinal aging studies: HRS (Health and Retirement study, USA), TILDA (The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, Ireland) and NICOLA (Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Northern Ireland). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Event - NI Science Festival 2024 (Belfast) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Outreach free public event in Belfast with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium on health and environment disseminating the new videos, comic and children's book |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Event - NI Science Festival 2024 (Derry) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Outreach free public event at the Foyle Arnea, County Londonderry - an event held predominatly for School attendance - with the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium on health and environment disseminating the new videos, comic and children's book |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Famelab Northern Ireland Final - Runner up |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Claire Hill summarised this research in 3 minutes to a general public audience. Around 70 people attended this Northern Ireland Science Festival event. Claire was awarded Runner up and many audience members were engaged with her work and commented on how clearly she communicated this complex topic. A kidney patient commented to Claire after how much she valued her talk and was excited about the research that was going on in this research field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Featured in Business First Online |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Business First Online picked up our work with the joint webinar series with Belfast Healthy Cities. The piece was entitled "Belfast Healthy Cities and Queen's University Belfast Partner on City's History and Public Health" and published online 10th Oct 2023. The article said, "Belfast Healthy Cities and Queens University Belfast partnered on a joint webinar, highlighting the intertwined and historical relationship between urban planning, Belfast's history, and public health. The event saw local experts discuss the profound influence of Belfast's history on the city's current public health landscape." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.businessfirstonline.co.uk/other-articles/belfast-healthy-cities-and-queens-university-be... |
| Description | Framing Ageing Symposium at QUB |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Framing Ageing Symposium was hosted by the Arts and Humanities school at Queen's University Belfast. It was a chance for early career researchers to share their current findings and research with regards to any aspect of gerontology. Presentations were carried out in small groups before presenters and hosts got together to discuss all of the interesting and important findings of the day. Attendees were from a range of disciplines and there was individuals who worked in both quantitative and qualitative research. A blog post about the event can be found in the URL below. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/framing-ageing/ |
| Description | Gateway to Global Ageing Data presentation [25 May 2022] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Ruth Hunter was invited to give a presentation to the annual Gateway to Global Ageing Data international meeting to showcase the SPACE project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Geoportal launch event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of the SPACE research project, in collaboration with OSNI/Land and Property Services, we have been developing a platform for accessing geospatial data across Northern Ireland - the SPACE geoportal. The geoportal can be used for exploring and downloading Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data relating to environmental variables which influence health and healthy ageing in our environment. Our open access geoportal resource houses 80+ datasets from across Northern Ireland, including land cover, climate, health, infrastructure and many more. The geoportal will be a useful resource for those working across research, academia, and policy in the area of health and the environment, and can be used to explore, discover, download and visualise spatial data across Northern Ireland. On 26th October 2023, we officially launched the geoportal at an in-person event at Queen's University Belfast. Over 70 individuals attended and heard speakers (including Ruth Hunter, Shay Mullineaux, Jennifer McKinley, Gemma McNickle and chair Niamh O'Kane) introduce the context around the development of the geoportal, introduce the geoportal itself, and discuss how the geoportal can be applied across research and teaching, practice, and policy. Those attending the event were then able to explore the geoportal themselves, with computers at each table. There was a member of the SPACE/geoportal team on hand to guide use of the tool and answer any questions. There was a Q&A session and some very engaging discussions. Individuals from Public Health Agency, landscape architect firms, and trusts expressed interest in using the tool and have suggested that the team could come and present the resource at various meetings. There were ideas from participants on how we could expand on the resource and encourage organisations to use it. Members of our Healthy Ageing Advisory Group were also in attendance and got to explore the geoportal in person. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://space-geoportal-queensub.hub.arcgis.com/ |
| Description | Greening the City Cork visit write up in the Daily Mirror |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The Irish Daily Mirror picked up the story about the Greening the City site visit to Cork and reported it in print in July 2023. The piece included quotes from Anne McCusker of Belfast Healthy Cities and a photo of the delegates on the trip. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/okaneniamh/status/1680954011287994368 |
| Description | Greening the City advisory committee - 5th April 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Prof Ruth Hunter co-chairs the Greening the City advisory committee. This is a joint partnership between QUB and Belfast Healthy Cities, established as part of the GroundsWell consortium. In our April meeting, there were updates from all stakeholders from previous meeting and a presentation on urban farming/agriculture from Patricia Wallace (Social Farms and Gardens). Prof Ruth Hunter and Dr Christopher Tate then presented a session entitled "GroundsWell Consortium Evidence and Training". There was then a discussion on the Greening the City Mapping Topic Paper. Lunch and networking followed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Healthy Ageing Challenge COP - Datasets |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | RH was involved in the development of a Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice on Datasets on 14th Dec 2021. She also provided a presentation outlining how the SPACE project links various data sources to explore the impact of the urban environment on cognitive health. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Healthy Ageing Challenge Early Researcher Career Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I was involved in the organisation and delivery of a two day Early Researcher Career event which brought together early career researchers from each of the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge Projects from across the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | IAP: 2022 Joint Public Health Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public health researchers and practitioners from Ireland attended the conference. I presented an oral presentation entitled "Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: a group model building study" where I showed the results of SPACE WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://healthyplanetconference.org/ |
| Description | IAP: 34th Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Hundreds of researchers from the Environmental Epidemiology field attended the conference. I presented an e-poster entitled "Mapping the complex systems that connects the urban environment to cognitive decline in older adults: a group model building study" where I showed the results of SPACE WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://isee2022.org/ |
| Description | IAP: 51st Annual Scientific and Educational Conference Canadian Association on Gerontology (CAG 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Hundreds of researchers from the Gerontology field attended the conference. I presented an oral presentation entitled " Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: The SPACE project" where I showed the results of SPACE WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://cag2022.ca/ |
| Description | IAP: Defining your Career: Pathways for Success |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was divided in two sessions. In the first session, theories and tools were shown to the early career researchers to be able to develop a career plan. In the second session, exercises to go towards more specific details on how to define next steps were shown and shared. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Developing International Collaborations in Healthy Ageing Research - Pre-conference event CAG 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was for researchers who were interested in building their international collaborations and networks with the goal of making their work count in addressing these global issues in healthy ageing. Specially focused on early career researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://cag2022.ca/program/preconference/healthyageing/ |
| Description | IAP: Effective Communication Skills |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In this workshop we learnt different theories about communication skills, engagement, barriers, personality types, and understanding of how different levels of communication work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Fellowship Workshop Transition to Independence & Leadership |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshop focused in giving Early Career Researchers the information and tools they need to know what funding bodies and applications exist for them to achieve their independency and future positions of leadership. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | IAP: Framing Ageing Symposium at Queen's University Belfast 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Early Career Researchers from different gerontological disciplines attended the symposium. I presented an oral presentation entitled "Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: a group model building study " where I showed the results of SPACE WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/ssesw/news/Archive2022/FramingAgeingSymposium.html |
| Description | IAP: Leeds Causal Inference Training Course |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I attended the Leeds Causal School, which is an intense five-day course that is delivered in-person in Leeds, UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.causal.training/ |
| Description | IAP: Media training: Interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was focused in giving the knowledge and the tools any researcher needs to properly do an interview in different media settings (TV, radio, newspaper). The workshop was taught by a journalist and gave us the opportunity to practice an on live interview, receiving feedback afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Networking and Profile Building for Researchers 2021-22 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was divided in 5 sessions to be able to understand and apply the principles of networking, and to develop a broad UK network of early career researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Oral presentation at the 16th European Public Health Conference 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an oral presentation about our ongoing work "Using Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) to inform the development of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)" in a conference where the audience was very diverse in terms of backgrounds, professions, and nationalities. I got a lot of questions from the audience, which sparked conversations after the session, and even after the conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://ephconference.eu/dublin-statement-2022-605 |
| Description | IAP: Oral presentation at the 52nd Annual Conference 2023 British Society of Gerontology |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an oral presentation about our ongoing work "Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: a group model building study" in a conference where the main audience were academics. I got a lot of questions from the audience, which sparked conversations after the session. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.britishgerontology.org/events-and-courses/past-conferences/2023-uea-norwich |
| Description | IAP: Oral presentation at the Society for Social Medicine & Population Health 67th Annual Scientific meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an oral presentation about our ongoing work "Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: a group model building study" in a conference where the main audience were academics. I got a lot of questions from the audience, which sparked conversations after the session. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://socsocmed.org.uk/ |
| Description | IAP: QUB Postdoctoral Leadership programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The QUB Postdoctoral Leadership Programme was organized in two sessions. In the first session the workshop was mainly focused in giving us tools to get to know ourselves using a psychometric tool and introduce us to different theories of leadership. In the second session we learned how to lead without a formal authority doing vision building and learning coaching skills for leaders. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Seminar Series Maynooth University - Psychology School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Students and academics from the Psychology School, Maynooth University attended the seminar series. I presented an oral presentation entitled " Mapping the complex systems that connects urban environment to cognitive health in older adults: The SPACE project" where I explained SPACE project and showed the results of SPACE WP1, among other topics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Supervising skills for Assistant Supervisors and postdocs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshop focused in giving Early Career Researchers the information and tools they need to develop good supervising skills. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: Talk: From Source to Solution: Unveiling Air and Soil Pollution, Microplastics, and Health Impacts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk about "From Source to Solution: Unveiling Air and Soil Pollution, Microplastics, and Health Impacts". This talk was a request from the Sustainability Team of the Northern Ireland Department of Justice, as part of a Sustainability workshop series. It was a talk with Q&A after, the entire session was online and it was 1h long. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | IAP: The strategic researcher |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The workshop was focused in giving tools to early career researchers to strategically plan their next steps to achieve their career goals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | IAP: UK Public Health Science conference 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Researchers from Public Health attended the conference. I presented an oral presentation entitled "Mapping the complex systems that connects the urban environment to cognitive decline: a group model building study" where I showed the results of SPACE WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://ukpublichealthscience.org/ |
| Description | IAP: UK Public Health Science conference ECR event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The UK Public Health Science conference Early Career Researcher (ECR) event provided a platform for Early Career Researchers to connect and exchange knowledge and expertise. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://ukpublichealthscience.org/?p=424 |
| Description | IAP: WHO Summer School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I taught a course with another colleague (Ruth Hunter) about "A systems approach to the promotion of healthy lifestyles for healthy ageing across the life course". The course was taught in person and it was 3 days long. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2023/07/18/default-calendar/summer-school-in-nice-f... |
| Description | IAP: Workshop: Introduction to Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for Causal Inference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I taught a workshop with another colleague (Huseyin Kucukali) about "Introduction to Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for Causal Inference". The workshop was taught in webinar format as part of SPACE project training and it was 4h long divided in two sessions of 2h. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#an-introduction-to-directed-acyclic-graphs-dags-for-cau... |
| Description | IAP: Workshop: Introduction to Systems Thinking and Causal Loop Diagrams |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I taught a workshop with other colleagues (Leandro Garcia, Ruth Hunter) about "Introduction to Systems Thinking and Causal Loop Diagrams". The workshop was taught in webinar format as part of SPACE project training and it was 4h long divided in two sessions of 2h. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Invited Member of Our Future Health Scientific Advisory Board |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This is the advisory board for a national strategic population-based project, which will inform how the project is developed to best support researcher across a range of disciplines, including industrial collaborators and practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited Research seminar Talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited research seminar talk for PhD students and researchers as part of the International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) student Chapter at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany. This was linked to International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) 2023 Distinguished Lecturer. Title: Opportunities and challenges for using compositional data analysis for Geohealth and Geoforensics. Different aspects of the ESRC SPACE project were presented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited member at KRUK-DUK-JDRF hosted Diabetic Kidney Disease Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | This was an event hosted by Diabetes UK, Kidney Research UK, and the JDRF with invited clinical, academic, and experts by experience exploring evidence gaps and research needs for diabetic kidney disease. A workshop report is planned to highlight a shared consensus of evidence gaps and to stimulate research investment and activity. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.kidneyresearchuk.org/kidney-disease-and-diabetes-workshop/ |
| Description | Invited presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation on 'SPACE: Environmental Geochemistry and Compositional Data Analysis: Exploring the effects of environmental factors on health', as part of the University of Stirling: Biological and Environmental Sciences Research Seminars |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited presentation for Nature vs Nurture - unravelling the role of epigenetics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited speaker at 25 year anniversary event, helping explain how epigenetics extends our understanding of environmental variables / impacts getting under our skin to influence health outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://folkhalsan.fi/en/knowledge/research/genetics/group-groop/ |
| Description | Invited research seminar talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited research seminar talk for PhD students and researchers at Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter, UK related to International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) 2023 Distinguished Lecturer. Title: Spatial Analytics and Compositional Data Analysis in Geoforensics and exploring relations between health and the environment. Different aspects of the ESRC SPACE project were presented and discussed in group discussions after the talk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited seminar talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited research seminar talk for PhD students and researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland related to International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) 2023 Distinguished Lecturer. Title: Exploring relations between health, the environment and climate change Different aspects of the ESRC SPACE project were presented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Invited seminar talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited research seminar talk for PhD students and researchers at University of Stirling, UK related to International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) 2023 Distinguished Lecturer. Title: Environmental Geochemistry and Compositional Data Analysis: Exploring the effects of environmental factors on health. Different aspects of the ESRC SPACE project were presented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Jian Gao - Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Jian Gao - presented a talk about our AI-based greenspace detection methods to the monthly Gateway Environmental Exposome Meeting, which includes international colleagues from all the gateway counties. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Joint Public Health Conference 30/12/2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A presentation entitled: "Compositional Statistics and Complex Heatmaps, Tools for Understanding Environmental Public Health Trends". This presentation demonstrated how compositional statistics and complex heatmaps can be used to assess correlations between chemical agents in the environment and public health outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Keynote speaker / Plenary at Diabetes UK's annual conference 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Nature vs Nurture debate at plenary session |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-uk-professional-conference/conference-information |
| Description | Kidney Canvas - NI Science Festival Public Engagement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We hosted an afternoon of hot desking, where experts and talented artists from the QUB Renal Arts Group guide visitors through hands-on art interventions that are used to support and uplift kidney patients undergoing dialysis. Visitors heard insights from local and regional kidney disease charities (Northern Ireland Kidney Research Fund, Kidney Care UK, Northern Ireland Kidney Patients Association), showcasing the incredible work they do to transform the lives of patients and their families. Attendees stepped into our mini-lab, building their own candy DNA and learning about kidney filtration using household items, alongside QUB scientists from the Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health group. Visitors discovered how this ground-breaking research is revolutionizing therapies and interventions for kidney disease. A special musical performance from the QUB Renal Arts Group band, Ragbone build a blend of art, science, music, fun and community, leaving visitors inspired and informed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://nisciencefestival.com/events/kidney-canvas-hot-desk-your-way-around-the-science-and-art-of-k... |
| Description | Knowledge synthesis and exchange, impact and communication: the novel methodological process of the SPACE (Supportive environments for Physical and social Activity, healthy ageing and CognitivE health) Project. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I presented a poster entitled "Knowledge synthesis and exchange, impact and communication: the novel methodological process of the SPACE (Supportive environments for Physical and social Activity, healthy ageing and CognitivE health) Project" at the Canadian Association on Gerontology Conference, 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Member of the Life and Health Sciences Committee multidisciplinary committee of the Royal Irish Academy for the June 2022-2026 term |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This is a 4 year term appointment. The Life and Medical Sciences Committee is an all-island multidisciplinary committee formed in September 2014. The committee's membership represents academia, industry, media, and other interest groups. The primary functions of the committee are to address issues of national and international interest through a programme of work, advise the Academy on the formation of policy and act as the national adhering organisation for international unions including the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) and the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). The committee has a varied programme of works ranging from lectures, expert statements on issues of national and international importance, and special events focusing on topical issues. This work enables the committee to engage with the wider scholarly community, policy makers and the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Niall McLaughlin - AGI Northern Ireland Annual Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented a talk "Using computer vision techniques to identify and assess the quality of green space from satellite imagery" to the AGI Northern Ireland Annual Conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Niall McLaughlin - presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Niall McLaughlin presented a talk about our AI-based greenspace detection methods to external academics from the Environment and Ageing project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Older People's Reference Panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | We held a 3-day training workshop in partnership with Strictly Boardroom in Nov 2021, Dec 2021 and Jan 2022 with approximately 40 older people from across Northern Ireland so that they could gain skills in communication, confidence and public speaking in order to participate effectively in the SPACE Older People's Reference Panel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Online news article - Slugger O'Toole |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Niamh O'Kane and Bakul Budhiraja wrote an article for Slugger O'Toole, entitled "The importance of urban green and blue space and nature based solutions..." which briefly explored the importance of our outdoor spaces and why they are relevant for health and climate. It also acted as a promotional tool for ESRC Festival of Social Science events. At time of reporting, the article has been read 1277 times and received 101 comments from the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://sluggerotoole.com/2023/10/25/the-importance-of-urban-green-and-blue-space-and-nature-based-s... |
| Description | Open Online Public Talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Open Online Seminar on Compositional data Analysis, hosted by University of Girona. This was linked to International Association of Mathematical Geoscience (IAMG) 2023 Distinguished Lecturer. Title: Challenges and opportunities for analysing and interpreting compositional data for environmental health modelling. Different aspects of the ESRC SPACE project were presented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.coda-association.org/en/coda-info/past-activities/coda-day-online-2023/ |
| Description | Policy workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | In September 2023, in collaboration with involve NI, we ran three consecutive workshops entitled "Leadership for healthy people and planet: an invitation to accelerate integrated policy and action on health and environment". It is important that the environment we live in is designed and improved to maximise brain health, and prevention receives very little policy attention. This co-design process aimed to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to set a policy agenda and pathways to improve the environments where we live with a focus on prevention, healthy ageing and brain health. Working with involve NI (Rebekah McCabe and Michael Donnelly), we designed three workshops taking place on consecutive weeks in September. We gathered together policy makers, implementers, researchers, advocates, campaigners and the general public to engage in the process - with 54 participants representing 30 individual organisations represented. Participants heard from experts, made connections, discovered policy agendas and agreed actions. Six topics emerged from the workshops to reflect the insights and aspirations of those participating: knowledge sharing, collaboration, leadership for change, car dependency, how we design and live in communities, and sustainability. The majority (93%) of participants reported meeting or networking with individuals they had previously not. Most (73%) reported they were happy with the outcome of the workshops and that they learned more about current research; 63% said they plan to reach out to groups to discuss policy action. The findings from the workshops were summarised in a report available online [https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#space-policy-workshop-report-2048885-4]. One common goal from the participants in the workshops was to continue these conversations, potentially as a working group who continues to meet going forward and works together to formulate a pathway to policy. The next steps of this piece of work are to: circulate and disseminate the report (via mailing lists, printing and socials), organise an online webinar to publicly present the findings of the report (and seek feedback from the public and stakeholders), and to organise subsequent meetings with the individuals from the workshops in the format of a working group. We also plan to embed these findings with local government - the project was approached by a colleague in the Department of Health NI who is enthusiastic about embedding a SPACE researcher in their Making Life Better team, those working on the public health strategic framework for Northern Ireland. In this way, we will endeavour to ensure that the findings and further findings of the working group will have impact on local and regional policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#space-policy-workshop-report-2048885-4 |
| Description | Poster at the launch of QUB Sustainable Development Policy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Post graduated students were invited to present posters to showcase how QUB researchers are aligning their work with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 50-100 people attended the pre-launch poster presentations who were mostly QUB students or staff. Numerous students and staff at the event enquired about the general SPACE project, what we do and why. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Presentation at Dementia Research Network Ireland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A presentation on how and why SPACE is interested in the urban environment and genetics with regard to preventing dementia at St James' Hospital in Dublin. Numerous attendees enquired further about the SPACE project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://dementianetwork.ie/sites/default/files/news/2023-10/ABSTRACT%20BOOK%20-%20DRNI%20ECR%20DAY%2... |
| Description | Presentation at Epigenomics of Common Disease conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation at the Wellcome Institutes Epigenomics of Common Disease conference showcasing planned analysis regarding urban green and blue space exposure, DNA methylation and cognitive outcomes. Many attendees enquired about the SPACE project and other work within the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | RC: SPACE in Time |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Approximately 40 people attended this inter-generational event with the youngest being 7 to the oldest 91 to learn about green and blue space and the effects the environment has on our brain and physical health. Participants brought along personal objects and shared their story with the audience which included researchers and representatives from our Older Persons Reference Group, engaged in group discussion about the past, present and hopes for the future as we age and built time capsules which will be buried at future events connected to the project. A time capsule was given to our youngest participant to take into School to talk about his day and build a capsule with his classmates, and a second was posted to a family who were keen to learn more about the project but were unable to attend on the day - they plan to build their own capsule. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | RC: Balmoral Show |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Balmoral Show is Northern Ireland's largest and longest running agricultural show with over 120,000 visitors. The SPACE project hosted a stand carrying out 'Body MOT's' (height, weight, grip strength, blood pressure) as a hook to engage with the public about their health, promote the research being carried out by the project and gauge interest in the outcomes of the study. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.balmoralshow.co.uk/ |
| Description | RC: Healthy People, Healthy Planet |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A cross border Joint Public Health conference organised by Queen's University Belfast (SPACE Project), the Institute of Public Health in Ireland, the Public Health Agency NI, the Department of Health (Ireland), Ulster University, and University College Cork. This was one of the first major conferences to highlight the impacts of climate change on population health on the island of Ireland. This virtual event attracted approximately 1000 registrations with delegates attending from across the UK and Ireland, and 28 other countries. Off the 12 abstracts chosen for oral presentations from submissions across the world, 3 were from the SPACE project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://healthyplanetconference.org/ |
| Description | SPACE CLD workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We held a 2-day workshop with a range of experts from various disciplines such as computer science, ageing, social epidemiology, geography, urban planning, molecular epidemiology, health and the environment, in partnership with the Innovation Lab, to develop a causal loop diagram exploring the plausible causal pathways between the urban environment and cognitive health. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | SPACE Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On Thursday 8th Feb 2024, we welcomed over 100 guests to our SPACE Event in the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium. Individuals from research, policy and practice, as well as members of our Healthy Ageing Advisory Group, came together to hear from international keynote speakers, SPACE research staff and some of our practitioner partners. Speakers included: George MacGinnis, Healthy Ageing Challenge Ruth Hunter, Queen's University Belfast Sara Adar, University of Michigan Jennifer McKinley, Queen's University Belfast Helen McLaughlin and George (a member of our Healthy Ageing Advisory Group), Age NI James Hennessey, The Paul Hogarth Company Katie Stringer, Studio Idir Eileen Crimmins and Jennifer Ailshire, University of Southern California Amy Jayne McKnight, Queen's University Belfast Rebekah McCabe, involve Jinkook Lee, University of Southern California Bernadette McGuinness, Queen's University Belfast Kyleigh Lough, Mae Murray Foundation We heard about the global context and local perspective of healthy ageing, the impact of the environment on ageing, and epigenetics, among other outputs. We also heard from two expert panels on policy and practice, and research legacy. After the formal presentations, delegates were invited for a dome presentation in the planetarium. Here, we launched two new videos: i) no planet B, and ii) ageing in space. You can watch both of these videos . We also launched two exciting new resources: a children's book "no planet B?", and a comic book for teens, "planet B?". These resources explore the topics of the search for a planet B, climate change, and protecting our planet for human health. We launched two reports at our event: 1) our policy workshop report which summarises findings from workshops held with stakeholders on the topic of accelerating policy and action on health and the environment, and 2) our knowledge exchange report which summarises the knowledge exchange approaches taken by researchers and how stakeholders access and want to receive this information. Our early career researchers on the SPACE project had the opportunity to share some of their work via e-posters which were displayed around the planetarium. We are also in the process of finalising a podcast on the future of ageing research as part of the SPACE research. This will include 3 episodes focused on the environment, epigenetics and future research challenges and opportunities, which includes input from our local and international speakers above. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | SPACE Time Capsule Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A group of participants from the study group, and their assorted family and friends came to participate in a cross-generational time capsule event, to gain perspectives in quality of life across generations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | SPACE Walk-Shop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Older adults were invited for a walk around the Connswater Community Greenway followed by a lunch and brief presentation on the SPACE project. SPACE fact sheets were discussed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | SPACE geoportal beta testing workshop [9 Mar 2023] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We held a second co-design workshop with 40 stakeholders from research, policy and practice to discuss feedback on the beta version of the SPACE geoportal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | SPACE geoportal workshop - co-design [8 Dec 2022] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We held a co-design workshop with 40 stakeholders from research, policy and practice to discuss initial design options for the SPACE geoportal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | STEAMing Kidneys - Where Science and Art Collide |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An increasing number of people are diagnosed with kidney disease, with one billion affected worldwide, impacting both patients and their families. To gain new insights into this condition and improve the quality of life of those affected, researchers today are taking novel and diverse approaches that unite the worlds of art and science! Come see the fruits of these collaborations and hear from the QUB scientists who are studying kidney disease genetics to aid the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Learn how the QUB Renal Arts Group works with patients, carers, doctors, scientists and artists to advance the physical and mental wellbeing of those living with kidney disease. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://nisciencefestival.com/events/steaming-kidneys-where-science-and-art-collide |
| Description | Thematic Workshop: sustaining physical activity [8 June 2021] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Met with other projects working on the Healthy Ageing Framework theme 'sustaining physical activity' at a Community of Practice workshop |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | UKRI working on wearables seminar [30 Sept 2021] |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | CC attended a UKRI seminar on wearables in health research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Webinar with Belfast Healthy Cities (Co-design of the urban environment for future generations) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 30th June 2023 - 'Co-design of the urban environment for future generations' - Joint webinar series with Belfast Healthy Cities. This webinar included the lauch of the SPACE information videos and factsheets and webinar series. Speakers included Ruth Hunter, Niamh O'Kane and Ione Avila-Palencia, as well as Geoff Green (WHO Europe) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Webinar with Belfast Healthy Cities (Novel environmental exposures) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The impact of plastics and other novel environmental exposures on public health on 28th Nov 2023. Webinar co-hosted with WHO Belfast Healthy Cities, with speakers Frank Kelly, Dan Middleton and Juliana Early. The webinar explored the next wave of environmental exposures and their potential impact on public health, including exposure to pollutants within the home, and by-products of the transition to net zero. The webinar was hosted on Zoom and promoted on socials. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Webinar with Belfast Healthy Cities (The history of our city and its influence on public health) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Webinar: The history of our city and its influence on public health took place online on 4th Oct 2023. Webinar co-hosted with WHO Belfast Healthy Cities, with speakers Jenny McKinley, Brendan Murtagh and AJ McKnight. The webinar explored the impact of family history and epigenetics, Belfast's industrial past, and urban design, on the public health of our population today. The webinar was hosted on Zoom and promoted on socials. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | invited presentation: AI at QUB - 2nd Sept 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Prof Ruth Hunter was invited to present at the AI at QUB seminar series about AI-related research in the area of health and environment which included showcasing this research project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |