Chinmoy Sarkar MSc, MPH, PhD

Dr Chinmoy Sarkar, MSc, MPH, PhD, is an Associate Professor of GIS, Urban Health and Environment in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong. He also co-leads the Healthy High-Density Cities Lab, HKUrbanLab, a lab conducting built environment-health research employing big data including health cohorts and health surveillance data. His research interests lie in the field of Healthy Places and Cities, specifically in the interdisciplinary domains of evidence-based healthy cities planning, spatial design analyses for healthy cities, healthy longevity, urban green and active travel, big data modelling in health and urban mobility, planning for smart cities, smart location-based technologies for health research, health GIS, and methodologies related to study design and statistical modelling. His work involves leveraging the power of data, models, algorithms and smart technologies towards a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to health city science, planning and policy-making for the creation of healthy places and cities in an increasingly urbanizing world. He is the concept lead and developer of the UK Biobank Urban Morphometric Platform (UKBUMP), the largest individual-level built environment-health exposure database, comprising more than 750 individual-level built environment morphological metrics (morphometrics) for half a million Britons. He is employing similar methodologies to replicate the development of urban exposure databases and studies in Hong Kong and elsewhere. He leads a series of large-scale studies aiming to develop more robust models of associations between objectively-measured built environment and activity behaviour and health outcomes. Dr Sarkar’s research has been highlighted internationally, been interviewed by major News outlets, published in top academic journals (including leading four publications in The Lancet Planetary Health) and has authored the book: Sarkar, Webster, Gallacher (2014) Healthy Cities: Public Health through Urban Planning, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar and other accolades.