Built Environment & Public Health

KOOHSARI Laboratory
Associate Professor：KOOHSARI Javad

E-mail：
［Research areas］
Built Environment, Public Health, Metaverse, Geospatial Health
［Keywords］
Home/Office Environment, Virtual Space, Health & Sports Promotion, Green Spaces, Mental Health, Urban Design

Skills and background we are looking for in prospective students

We are always looking for students who have an enthusiasm for conducting ‘interdisciplinary science’ to join our research group. Students from different disciplines are welcome. Basic knowledge of statistics and good English written and oral communication skills are required.

What you can expect to learn in this laboratory

Students who graduate from our research group will acquire an understanding of scientific theories and conduct investigations related to the emerging interdisciplinary field of ‘built environment & public health’. They will be familiar with the necessary methods and techniques in conducting research to produce evidence-based knowledge on how to (re)design physical and virtual environments to support population health. Students will develop their critical thinking and practical skills in statistics (i.e., SPSS, STATA, R software) and spatial data analysis (i.e., ArcMap, QGIS).

【Job category of graduates】 Academic jobs, Consultant companies, Civil servant

Research outline

Figure 1. Using geospatial techniques in health science (Source of the image: Koohsari, 2020, Calgary, Canada)

The built environment includes built attributes such as houses, shops, work offices, streets, and green spaces that influence individuals’ health. Although modifying the built environment tends to be difficult in the short term, built environment strategies have long-term effects on behaviour and health. There is also growing scientific interest in understanding how the virtual environment influences health and well-being.

Our research focuses on how built (and virtual built) environment and geospatial sciences can contribute to health. Our mission is to provide evidence-based knowledge on (re)designing homes, offices, neighbourhoods and communities in which we live, work, and play to support the health and well-being of people of all ages.

We adopt a socioecological approach to move research in this field by exploring the following issues:

• Investigating pathways through which built environment might influence health outcomes.
• Exploring challenges and opportunities that super-aged communities will have in supporting residents’ health and well-being.
• Understanding the effects of virtual built environment attributes on health.
• Developing new tools to measure built environmental exposures in health studies using geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI).
• Exploring how the metaverse may influence people’s health.

Figure 2. The Built Environment & Health