Active Living

Research Group Leader

Professor Malcolm Granat

Tel: +44(0)141 331 8958
Email: malcolm.granat@gcu.ac.uk

Professor Granat is Head of Research and Knowledge Transfer within Glasgow Caledonian University’s School of Health.  Malcolm leads the GCU strand of the Glasgow Research Partnership in Engineering focussing efforts on the development of physical activity measurement techniques for the benefit of a wide range of clinical groups.  Malcolm has a strong interest in physical activity monitoring from his early work in the development of novel instrumentation for ambulatory monitoring he is now developing analysis techniques and outcome measures for the quantification of free-living activity.  Collaborations with clinicians and health practitioners allow his research to be applied across varied populations where the benefits of physical activity to health are of key importance.  Malcolm has an extensive publication record and is a member of the SPARColl advisor team.

Research Scope

The work of this group is underpinned by the growing need to understand and quantify free-living activity in a range of populations and environments. The main focus of the group is in the development of outcome measures and novel methods of analysis for physical activity data. Outcomes measures, based on physical activity patterns, are being developed to quantify the effectiveness of interventions in a wide range of clinical groups and these techniques are also being used to provide new instruments for enhancing our understanding of how levels of physical activity are affected by environmental and social factors.  The need to development new interventions for changing physical activity and sedentary behaviour is a strong motivator for our work with collaborators.

The group has an active programme of research exploring the relationship between physical activity and health risk factors across the age range from young children to the frail elderly. Underpinning this work, the group are advancing the techniques of physical activity monitoring including the development of new hardware and software. Developing an understanding of motivational factors and behaviour change in relation to changing physical activity patterns in individuals and populations is an emerging theme.

The research goals of the Active Living group are:

• To expand understanding of the relevance of physical activity to health in a wide range of conditions and diseases and populations.
• To develop innovative techniques and instruments and outcome measures for the analysis of free-living physical activity for the purpose of illuminating the relationship to health and well-being.
• To establish the measurement of free-living physical activity as a routine element of rehabilitation care by demonstrating relevance to outcomes.
• To establish methodologies for the quantification of free-living physical activity through the development of devices and signal analysis methods.