Photo of Professor Mark Green

Professor Mark Green BA (Hons), MSc, PhD, FHEA

Professor of Health Geography Geography and Planning

Research

Research Overview

Mark's research examines how new forms of (big) data (e.g., images, text, loyalty card records) can supplement traditional administrative datasets (e.g., mortality records, surveys, hospital admissions data) for understanding the social and spatial drivers of health inequalities.

Geographical determinants of health

A geographer at heart, Mark's research has also sought to understand the ways in which features of the neighbourhoods we live and interact with daily imprint on our health. This has involved: building the largest and most comprehensive small area database of geographical measures of health - the Access to Health Assets and Hazards - which has been used by Public Health England; exploring the communities who were engaged in asymptomatic COVID-19 testing during the "mass testing" pilot in Liverpool; and examining whether the density of fast food outlets has an effect on body weight and obesity. Research funded by the Drivers of Food Choice programme and the MRC (2016-2019) has identified the extent unhealthy and healthy foods sold and advertised across Ghana and Kenya, and has been used to support strategies to regulate and restrict planning to promote health. The ESRC funded 'Local Data Spaces' project saw Mark co-producing data resources for Local Authorities to help generate evidence to support urgent policy decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Big data, machine learning and health

The growth in availability of data in scope and size has yielded new exciting opportunities for understanding health behaviours, particualrly when combined with maturing data mining approaches. Mark's research has investigated the contribution of new forms of (big) data in this field including: reviewing big data approaches in obesity-related research; examining the contribution of loyalty card records for understanding self-medication behaviours; and using Twitter to examine how misinformation trends reacted to the 2021 UK lockdown. Their 'Understanding Society Biomedical Data Fellowship' (2018) utilised deep learning and decision tree algorithms to evaluate how useful different data types (e.g. biomakers, genetics, social measures) for predicting an individual's risk of future ill health.

Research Group Membership

Research Grants

Food for added life years: Putting research into action (Food+ REACT) or (FoodAdd React) or (Food4Years)

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

February 2022 - March 2025

Food for added life years: Putting research into action (Food4Years)

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

February 2022 - March 2025

Inclusive Ageing

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

June 2022 - May 2025

Food Insecurity in people living with Obesity - improving sustainable and healthier food choices in the retail FOOD environment. (FIO-FOOD)

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

September 2022 - August 2025

Covid-SMART Release & Return

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)

February 2022 - July 2022

GroundsWell: Community-engaged and Data-informed Systems Transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for Population Health

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

October 2021 - September 2026

Supporting Post Pandemic Recovery and Resilience through New Forms of Data

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

February 2022 - July 2023

Linking Quality of Urban Environments with Nature-Connectedness and Health Network (EQUI-Food)

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL

November 2021 - October 2022

Using data to improve public health: COVID-19 secondment

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

October 2021 - September 2022

NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections (HPRU EZI)

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)

April 2020 - March 2025

Health inequalities in the care pathways for people living with young- and late-onset dementia in Liverpool

LCCG - LIVERPOOL CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (UK)

November 2019 - April 2020

Business and Local Government Data Research Centres (Big Data)

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

February 2014 - March 2025

The aim of the fellowship is to apply a novel machine learning approach to identify the relative contribution of personal, social, health, biomarker and genetic data as predictors of individual-level health.

UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX (UK)

February 2018 - December 2018

Dietary transitions in African cities: leveraging evidence for interventions and policy to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

April 2017 - March 2019

Protein for Life: Towards a Focused Dietary Framework for Healthy Ageing

BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

July 2017 - December 2018

Dietary transitions in Ghanaian cities: mapping the factors in the social and physical food environments that drive consumption of energy dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods, to identify interventions reaching women and adolescent girls throughout the reproductive life-course

BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION (USA)

January 2017 - January 2019