Sports, physical activity and health
Physical health is studied in several centers and laboratories at the Ģֱ, including The Research Centre of Health Promotion (TETK), Gerontology Research Center (GEREC), Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research (CIBR), NeuroMuscular Research Center (NMRC) and Digital Health Intelligence Lab.
The Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences has received research funding from the Academy of Finland to support the profiling projects Physical Activity and Health During the Human Life Span (PACTS 1-2, 2019-2023) and The Behavior Change, Health, and Wellbeing across the Lifespan (BC-Well, 2019-2026). The main research themes of PACTS 1-2 include developmental changes in the brain across the human life spans, mechanisms of environmental and endogenous effects on brain plasticity, self-regulation, development and learning, physical activity, functional capacity and brain changes as well as motor learning and behavioral change.
The wellbeing effects of physical activity are core research themes in numerous research projects in the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences. These projects often utilize health data to develop wellbeing technologies by, for instance, collaborating with different companies, industrial collaborators as well as researchers from the Faculty of Information Technology. CPSS (Value Creation for Cyber-Physical Systems and Services) research at the University conducts analyses on the relationship between mobility and wellbeing using mobile technology and wearable devices. Similarly, the Human-Technology Interaction research group examine user experience in human-technology interaction.
In addition to physical activity, the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences also studies topics related to health sciences and health promotion, for example nutrition. Research themes connected to physical health and illness are also examined at the Faculty of Mathematics and Science. Some of the central topics include health safety, infections, bacteria, viruses and antibiotic resistance. Many of the studies have broadened their perspectives beyond human wellbeing to include environmental and planetary wellbeing, which are key research themes in the School of Resource Wisdom JYU.Wisdom.
