Lifestyle, physical activity, and healthy ageing

With the advances in medicine, the global drop in fertility rates, and the rises in life expectancy at birth over the past 50 years, the world population is demographically shifting into an older age group, predicting that by 2050 one person in five will be 60 years or older. A great heterogeneity in defining healthy ageing exists and constitutes a fundamental flaw that has led to persisting gaps in
research, rendering the pooling of available data and the drawing of conclusions for improving health and policy on ageing a difficult task. The PhD project aims to further the understanding of healthy ageing trajectories as well as the role of lifestyle determinants such as dietary patterns, physical activity, exercise, sedentary behaviour, and sleep on cardiovascular health, fitness, longevity, and the way people from various ethnic backgrounds and identities age.

Keywords: healthy ageing, cardiovascular health, lifestyle, ethnicity, gender

Short Biography

I hold a BSc in Life and Earth Sciences from Université Saint Joseph de Beyrouth and a MSc in Nutrition from King`s College London (2014) following the award of the Said Foundation and British Lebanese Association regional scholarships. Since 2015, I have held several research positions at the American University of Beirut, first at the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department where I worked on malnutrition and noncommunicable diseases prevention in Lebanon. I subsequently joined the Global Health Institute as Programmes Manager where my work focused on developing and coordinating the conflict medicine projects with regional and international partners focusing on trauma post-conflict and health research capacity strengthening in conflict-affected settings in the MENA.

Marilyne Menassa

University of Bern

Personal Website
marilyne.menassa@ispm.unibe.ch

Supervisor: Oscar Franco