Advisory board

Professor Luis Bettencourt Sardinha will chair the scientific advisory board of the project and be involved in several specific tasks within his areas of expertise. Briefly, Mr. Sardinha is Professor of Exercise Prescription and Functional Body Composition and Energy Regulation at the Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon. He is the Director of the Exercise and Health Laboratory, Scientific Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Human Performance (CIPER), Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon, Research Group Funded by Portuguese Government, Science and Technology Foundation, and member of the Hoc Research Working Group on Body Composition, Health and Performance under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission. Pr. Sardinha has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and has been investigator in several international research projects and PI in several FCT-funded projects. Moreover, he has integrated the Expert Group chaired by Sports Unit of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission which in 2008, published the European Union Physical Activity Guidelines, recommending policy actions in support of health-enhancing physical activity.

Additionally, Professor Karim Abu-Omar from the Institute of Sport Science and Sport (ISS), and Professor Jonas David Finger from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, are also members of the advisory board and will actively participate in the development of the EUPASMOS project.

The Department of Sport Science and Sport (ISS), of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen Nürnberg (FAU) in Germany, is a WHO Collaborating Center on Physical Activity and Public Health. The ISS has supported the WHO on matters of physical activity surveillance for many years. They have tested physical activity questionnaires (mainly the IPAQ) in cross-national surveys for validity and reliability and have analyzed physical activity-related data from the Eurobarometer, for the European Commission.

Finally, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has extensive expertise in monitoring and evaluating a range of indicators, such as physical activity, sedentary behavior, dietary behavior and overweight/obesity, at the population level, as well as developing research in the field of health-care utilization, health promotion and disease prevention. Moreover, the Department has developed the National Health Monitoring Programme which is financed by the Federal Ministry of Health and comprises the components of the German National Health Examination Surveys for children, adolescents and adults (DEGS and KiGGS). Moreover, they have led the National Health Interview Surveys (GEDA) for adults in which the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) integrated in 2014.