Behavioral medicine, health and lifestyle (BeMe-Health)

The focus of our multidisciplinary behavioral medicine approach is on health, healthy lifestyle and health related behavior change, and is based on the integrated knowledge of human behavior in functioning, activity, and participation in different ages and states of health. The mission is to contribute to high-quality projects on the national and international scientific arena.

The goals of our mission are:

• to contribute to the front line in behavioural medicine research in health behaviour and a healthy lifestyle
• to conduct research in line with the Research and Education Strategy at Mälardalen University
• to guarantee the research basis of relevant courses and study programmes at first-, second- and third-cycle levels in Health and Welfare
• to work systematically for external funding of our research
  

Members of the BeMe-Health research group

Ongoing research (examples)

1. In the research area sedentary behavior, we have ongoing project funded by Swedish Research Council (VR) for 4 years. We have got 3-years funding from Cancer fonden for another project in sedentary behavior topic (Now 2020), and an application for a third project has been submitted for VR during Spring 2021. We consider our research in this topic to have high potential to be both nationally and internationally recognized during the coming years. The sedentary research is part of the research base for Physiotherapy program and also program in Behavior sciences and courses in psychology. In future, we aim to explore the potential of integration of artificial intelligence and behavioral medicine approach in health, which can be considered as exploring new ways for research in BeMe-Health.
   
   
2. Implementation of evidence-based knowledge, more specifically behavior medicine approach in physiotherapy, is one of our promising research areas. In the previous project, funded by AFA insurance, we studied the implementation of behavior medicine approach in physiotherapy in primary care context. The project contributed with knowledge about the development and evaluation of implementation efforts performed in collaboration with three nearby regions. However, the question of which implementation components and in which combination would work best is still a challenge and thus, need to be researched. In a future study we will also focus on maintenance of professionals’ behavior change in implementation context. The results of the previous and future projects have high potential for both national and international recognition. This research contributes to the research base for Physiotherapy program.
   
3. With the background of a growing population of older adults in need of home care services, our co-production partners in Eskilstuna municipality have expressed a marked interest in us to further develop an ongoing systematic literature review project on interventions to promote community dwelling older adults’ mental health with focus on psychological and emotional well-being. As evidenced based and feasible interventions of this kind is lacking both nationally and internationally, there would be a widespread interest to explore such interventions. Eskilstuna municipality is willing to test and implement different intervention candidates by means of the existing home care service organisation. Results of this sort would be relevant for several of the educational programmes, because nurses, physiotherapists and social workers all meet older adults.