November 2011 For immediate release Wellbeing Institute launched

A centre that will tackle the issues of health and wellbeing has been launched at Leeds Metropolitan University.

The Institute for Health & Wellbeing will undertake research into the health status of individuals and communities and will investigate issues including mens health, healthy communities, health promotion and nutrition and childhood obesity. It will house a related range of disciplines within a single unit allowing innovation and collaboration to thrive.

The Institute has six distinct yet related research themes: Healthy communities, Health promotion, Mens health, Men, gender and wellbeing, Nutrition & childhood obesity, pain science and management. Professor Richard Hogston, Institute Director, said: The Universitys research foundations and strengths are rooted in the practical implications of research (the doing) and the impact research has on communities; this will now be nurtured to even higher levels of excellence.

Professor Mike Kelly, Director of the Centre of Public Health Excellence at the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), commented: This

development is going to make a very big impact on a range of different areas of health and wellbeing. To understand the nature of the health of society, we have to focus not only on the mortality and morbidities in society but the broader concept of wellbeing and the acknowledgement of that in the title is

very important and a pointer to the way we ought to be thinking about the future.

Ian Cameron, Executive Director of Public Health at NHS Leeds, added: Leeds continues to be faced with significant health challenges, including unacceptable levels of health inequalities. The creation of the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at Leeds Metropolitan University provides a tremendous opportunity to help meet those challenges. By harnessing the national and international work of the new institute we can collaboratively better deliver innovative community-based solutions for the benefit of the people of Leeds.

Ends For further details please contact Carrie Braithwaite on 0113 812 3022 or email c.braithwaite@leedsmet.ac.uk

Notes for editors:

Leeds Metropolitan University has 30,000 students and 3, 000 staff. The University has achieved its best ever Research Assessment Exercise results. Sports-Related Studies is in the top 6 institutions in the country with research rated at the highest levels of 4* and 3*.

Leeds Met has been rated the top university in the UK for its language support, accommodation quality and learning spaces in the 2010 Autumn Wave of the International Student Barometer and sixth in the world for the quality of its lectures.

The

Universitys

award-winning

learning

environments

include

Broadcasting Place, voted the best tall building in the world in 2010 by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and also winner of the 2010 Leeds Architecture Awards New

Building category, the iconic Rose Bowl building, awarded Best Commercial Property Development in the 2009 Yorkshire Property Awards and the pioneering Carnegie Village student accommodation. Leeds Metropolitan is one of only a handful of UK universities to have been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard.