Patrik Wennberg

Research group In our research group, we study lifestyle and its importance for health and disease. One important focus within our research is the health effects of physical activity and sedentary behaviour.

Physical activity is an important part of the health promoting and disease preventing work. Being physically active can reduce the risk of many of our main non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes type 2, cardiovascular disease and depression. Further, physical activity is an important part in the treatment of many of these diseases. In later years, sedentary behaviour has also been suggested as a risk factor of ill health.

A lot of the current knowledge regarding the health effects of physical activity and sedentary behaviour is, however, based on self-reports, which entails a risk of considerable measurement errors. Our group therefore often use activity trackers, so called accelerometers, to measure physical activity and sedentary behaviour, both in intervention and population-based studies.

Some of our research areas of interest include:

Physical activity and sedentary behaviour during work and leisure-time in different occupational categories and related health effects.
Health effects of reducing sedentary behaviour in patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes type 2.
Health effects of Swedish snus.
Methods that can contribute to a healthy lifestyle and improved disease preventing treatments.