The Rapid Urbanisation and Population Health (RUPH) Research Network explores urban health and environmental issues and support building of transdisciplinary, cross-faculty, research capacity among UNSW academics conducting research in Australia, Asia and the Western Pacific regions.
The Rapid Urbanisation and Population Health (RUPH) Research Network explores urban health and environmental issues and support building of transdisciplinary, cross-faculty, research capacity among UNSW academics conducting research in Australia, Asia and the Western Pacific regions. It is a partnership between the UNSW Institute for Global Development, UNSW Grand Challenges and UNSW Medicine.
The research network aims to build new capacities for consequential and policy-relevant research by generating knowledge sharing and collaboration opportunities, as well as connecting early and mid-career researchers to senior academic mentors and established multi-institutional research entities.
The Network also hosts webinars across a variety of topics. The webinar series is developed to provide members of the RUPH community as well as people interested in urbanisation, public health and city planning with a platform to meet, connect and engage with like-minded academics and industry representatives.
Associate Professor Xiaoqi Feng is an NHMRC Career Development Fellow in the UNSW School of Population Health and an Adjunct Professor with the National Institute of Environmental Health at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NIEH/China CDC).
Xiaoqi leads a program of research focused on enhancing population wellbeing through identifying potentially modifiable social and environmental factors (e.g. urban green space, air pollution, heat, food environment) that shape health and developmental trajectories and inequities among newborns, children, adolescents and women across the lifecourse.
In May 2020, Xiaoqi secured $1.45 million in funding, from the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), for a joint project with Professor Richard Mitchell from the Glasgow University investigating how green spaces can reduce inequalities in mental health and cardiometabolic disease prevention. The full team includes Thomas Astell-Burt (CI, UOW), Susan Thompson (CI, UNSW), Brenda Lin (CI, CSIRO, Brisbane), Bin Jalaludin (CI, UNSW), Evelyne de Leeuw (CI, UNSW), Richard Fuller (CI, UQ), Jon Olsen (CI, Glasgow), Fiona Caryl (CI, Glasgow), Jill Pell (CI, Glasgow), Timothy Dobbins (AI, UNSW), Melanie Anderson(AI, UNSW), Glen Maberly (AI, WSLHD).
Read Xiaoqi’s full academic profile, learn more about her UKRI-NHMRC project as well as her latest work on Greening our way through the pandemic, calling for safer spaces for walking and cycling and how More green, more ‘zzzzz’ on the UNSW Newsroom.
The RUPH Research Network is open to all UNSW researchers, interested in urban health and environment and especially encourages early-to-mid career academics to get involved. If you would like to stay up to date with RUPH's work, consider joining as a member via the link below.
For enquiries, please email Associate Professor Xiaoqi Feng (xiaoqi.feng@unsw.edu.au).
The RUPH Network was previously supported by UNSW Grand Challenges. The IGD recognises the contribution of the UNSW Grand Challenge on Rapid Urbanisation in supporting this work.
