UK Biobank Urban Morphometric Platform (UKBUMP) - a nationwide resource for evidence-based healthy city planning and public health interventions

The built environment (BE) has emerged as one of the 'first causes' of chronic disease, capable of explaining its socio-spatial variation. There is an increasing need spatial modelling for objective, detailed and precise measurements of attributes of BE that may influence our lifestyle, behaviour and hence physical and mental health. The talk will report the UK Biobank Urban Morphometric Platform (UKBUMP), the first ever high resolution spatial database of more than 750 individual-level urban morphological metrics (morphometrics), being developed for half-a-million participants of the UK Biobank (UKB) Prospective study spatially distributed across 22 UK cities. Spatial modelling of the BE was conducted employing state-of-the-art spatial and network analyses upon multiple national-level spatial datasets to construct objective health promoting/ inhibiting morphometrics and linked to UK Biobank participant’s dwelling locations. BE epidemiological statistical models currently being developed to assess the associations between BE and behavioural and health outcomes will be discussed very briefly. Prospective large scale objective assessment of the BE enables development of BE-health modelling studies that have the potential to identify causal pathways from specific attributes of the BE to various genetically complex chronic health outcomes as well as well-being. Thereby introducing a step-change in rigour and explanatory power. The UKBUMP will act as a national resource, providing a platform for evidence-based healthy city planning and interventions for the first half of the 21 century.