Across Generations: BC Generations Project Newsletter, Winter 2025/26

Can neighbourhoods support healthier diets?

A new study is collecting data from 100,000 Canadians to provide important insights about how neighbourhood environments may help or hinder health, such as eating well and staying active.

Led by Dr. Rachel Murphy at the University of British Columbia, the HEALthy Eating and Supportive Environments (HEAL) study is recruiting participants via CanPath’s seven regional cohorts, including the BC Generations Project. Participants will be engaged to provide detailed information about their dietary intake and physical activity over two 24-hour periods. The following year, participants will be asked to complete questionnaires aimed at determining general diet and activity over the past year.

The study will link participant information with datasets that describe their home neighbourhoods, such as data about the distribution of food outlets and presence of sidewalks and green space. “This work will help us identify important neighbourhood improvements and public health policies that make it easier for Canadians to live long healthy lives,” Dr. Murphy explains.

As with all population-based studies, attracting more participants will enable better research insights. “The true value of the data emerges when we can look at the experiences of many thousands of people,” says Dr. Parveen Bhatti, BC Generations Project lead investigator. “These studies rely so much on the ongoing interest of our participants.”

Healthy guts, healthy aging

The human gut is home to a microscopic world of organisms. Known as the gut microbiome, this complex ecosystem influences, and is influenced by, the function of multiple body systems.

A small group of BC Generations Project participants is currently being recruited to join a study on the gut microbiome’s influence on healthy aging, and its potential future use as a target for preventing or treating disease. The study is led by Dr. Michael Kobor at the University of British Columbia.

The BC Generations Project cohort will represent a healthy control group whose information and biosamples can be compared to those of people with different age-related health conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease.

A pilot of the study ran in spring 2025 with 30 initial participants. Two hundred more individuals are now being recruited to join the healthy control group. Participants will complete questionnaires on lifestyle and diet and return an at-home stool collection kit (similar to a FIT screening test). They will also visit the BC Cancer Research Centre in Vancouver to provide a blood and urine sample.

If you meet the study inclusion criteria, we may be in touch!

Banking your biosamples

In 15 years of operations, the BC Generations Project has collected blood, urine and stool samples from more than 26,000 BC participants. That translates to almost 695,000 individual specimens available for use in various research studies.

Accurate and detailed record keeping is an essential part of managing our samples. All specimens added to our biobank are tagged with 87 separate pieces of information about the type of specimen and how it has been handled, processed and stored. These variables collectively tell the story of each individual sample and help us determine its suitability for use in different types of studies. For example, some research analysis methods require samples to be handled in a particular way.

All told, the BC Generations Project biobank currently tracks more than 60 million data points, not counting all the information created from sample analysis. That’s a lot of data!

Progress Report: Brain Resilience Study

Last year, we announced the launch of recruitment for a study at Simon Fraser University to understand the biological and social factors that influence brain health and resilience to dementia. We continue to send invitations to eligible BC Generations Project members.

The study is now about halfway to reaching its recruitment goal of 1,300 participants. Roughly half of enrolled participants have completed all study activities.

For those who have already joined, thank you for participating! If you receive an invitation from us in the future, we hope you will consider joining this important study.

Check email for your HEAL study invitation

In September, the BC Generations Project began emailing HEAL study invitations to our participants. If you have a valid email address on file with us, rest assured that you will receive your invitation to join in the coming months.

Need to update your contact info?

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to participate in important Canadian health research like the HEAL study.

If you have moved or changed your primary email address, you can easily update your contact information online. Thank you for staying connected with us!