BlueHealth involves countries across Europe

BlueHealth makes a media splash

University of Exeter researchers hit television screens and radio speakers across the country this week, as millions of people across the UK tuned in to learn about the BlueHealth programme.

BlueHealth is researching how urban environments, characterised by inland waterways and coastal margins, can affect health promotion and disease. The EU-funded pan-European project is working with communities, private sector organisations and policymakers to ensure its findings are focused and relevant.

The programme involves specialists from countries across the EU and runs from January 2016 to June 2020.

The research was featured as part of BBC Breakfast's week-long series on coasts, and reporter Graham Satchell spent two days with the BlueHealth team in Truro to find out about their virtual reality project. He met the team while they were out on location, filming 360 videos, and spoke to PhD researcher Nicky Yeo about the study. He also interviewed participants who were trying the virtual environments out for the first time.

Graham’s report aired across BBC channels on Tuesday 5th September, most notably gaining three airings on BBC One in the morning and another on BBC World in the afternoon. View the clip here.

Following up this report, Professor Lora Fleming was interviewed by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the BlueHealth project more widely. Lora also appeared on BBC Wales and BBC Cornwall to help shed light on the exciting areas of work BlueHealth is investigating.

Listen to Lora’s Radio 4 interview here.

Meanwhile, Dr Mathew White also spoke with BBC Radio South in a lengthy interview which covered the research leading up to BlueHealth and some interesting related areas.

You can listen to Mat’s interview here.

Date: 7 September 2017