How do we create a society with the best opportunities for a healthy life?

Within this focus area, we will look at causal factors and explore effective health promotion and prevention measures for the public health challenges with particularly large health losses: mental health, musculoskeletal disorders, obesity, cancer, and dementia. We need to understand how the physical and social environments contribute to disease and promote health, and which preventive and health-promoting measures will be effective at individual and community-level in Norway and globally.

Early efforts towards health promotion are important, as lifestyle and habits are established early in life. Sectors such as housing, kindergartens, schools, workplaces, cultural and activity facilities, infrastructure, in addition to physical and digital public spaces, represent important arenas for understanding causes, but also for facilitating measures that promote a healthy life span. This focus area also includes technology and activities that enables people to better cope and live good lives despite functional impairments or illnesses.