Project R-5296

Cooperation agreement between Hasselt University and VITO in the context of a doctorate with title: "Health effects of active mobility: cardiovascular advantages and risks of accidents and air quality" (Research)

The European FP7 PASTA project forms the frame of this PhD project and aims at improving health by promoting active mobility. A survey will be conducted to collect self-reported data on transport behavior and physical activity level of 14 000 participants (2000 in each of 7 participating studies including Antwerp). The analysis of this data set should allow to get a better view on the pros and cons for the health and in particular those parameters that are still unknown (e.g. substitution between different forms of physical activity, the exact accident risk in relation to exposure ...) These crowd sourced data will be verified in complementary add-on modules. In this project, the candidate will focus on the add-on module for the collection of objective data on the health effects of active mobility, namely being physically active and exposed to air pollution. In 3 of 7 participating cities experiments are set up using small sensors to measure the air quality and the level of physical activity during the transportation. With non-invasive techniques, the physiological effects of exposure in combination with the physical effort are also measured. The final goal is to contribute to the WHO tool HEAT , to develop practical applications to determine the health effects, the benefits and costs of active mobility for society and individuals in order to deliver input to establish a sustainable and preventive healthcare.

01 May 2014 - 31 December 2018