​GeoQol Research centre
Research Centre on Health, Quality of Life and Lifestyle in a Geodemographic and Socioeconomic Context (GeoQol) is an interdisciplinary oriented working group of scientific researchers, composed primarily of science teachers and students of the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science on the Charles University in Prague and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London. Research center is mainly interested in the analysis of the current state of the population health, individual and social ways of its care, as well as environmental impacts and socio-economic climate on human health. All this in the context of the changing intensity of the effects on health of the aimed population.

Research topics

  • population health and its geographical distribution
  • social epidemiology and social psychiatry
  • quality of life, social exclustion integration of selected population groups into the majority with focus on immigrants and health-handicapped 
  • lifestyle risk factors of cancer and cardiovascular diseases
  • social aspects of population ageing 
  • life style during the transformation period
  • shoppong, retail and consumer behaviour
  • values orientation in transforming society​

The team

Research staff
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prof. RNDr. Dagmar Dzúrová, CSc.
(head)

social geography, demography, social epidemiology, quality of life, population health, scio-pathological phenomena in populations
Since her graduation in geography at the Faculty of Science, Charled university, she works at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development. She is a proffessor of demography and her research interests include geo-demography, quality of life, population health and socio-pathological phenomena in populations. Recently, she has collaborated on research projects in the fields of international migration, public health and various integration processes. Since 2006, she has been a member of both the research boards of Faculty of Science of Charles University and of geography.  She is a director of the MSc Social Epidemiology at the Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science. She is also a director of PhD studies of Demography. 
PUBLICATIONS, ​RESEARCH PROJECTS
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doc. RNDr. Bc. Jana Šiftová, Ph.D.

social geography, food geography, geography of  retail and consumption, behavioral geography, methods in geographical research
Jana Spilková defended her Ph.D. in 2006 at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. She currently works as an associate professor at the department of social geography and regional development, where she focuses on people’s life-style during the period of transition from communism to capitalism, mainly the key trends in the consumption, shopping, nutrition etc. She teaches statistical analysis and other methods in social geographical research, as well as behavioral geography and geography of retail and consumption.
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RNDr. Michala Lustigová, Ph.D.

demography, health geography, social epidemiology, population health, epidemiology of NCDs, ageing and health 
She graduated at the Department of Demography and Geodemography at the Faculty of Science, Charles University. Her Ph.D. thesis was focused on cardiovascular epidemiology and cardiovascular health among the Czech population. Nowadays she works as an assistant professor at the department of Social Geography and Regional Development at the Faculty of Science of the Charles University with focus on health demography and health geography. Together to that she works as a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health in Prague with the main concern on health surveys, Czech population health, and assessing the influence of life style and environment on population health.
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Ivana Kulhánová, Ph.D.

sociální epidemiologie, epidemiologie nádorových onemocnění , sociální nerovnosti ve zdraví
She obtained her PhD in social epidemiology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In her PhD thesis, she focused on educational inequalities in mortality in Europe. After completion of doctoral studies, she moved to France where she conducted research in cancer epidemiology at the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Currently, she works as a researcher at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development at the Faculty of Science of the Charles University with main research interests in cancer epidemiology and social inequalities in health.
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RNDr. Pavlína Netrdová, Ph.D.

quantitative methods in social geography, spatial data analysis, applied statistics, measuring of regional differences
Pavlína Netrdová is an assistant professor at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, Charles University. Her research focuses on quantitative methods in social geography, spatial data analysis and GIS (geographic information system), spatial aspects of socio-economic differentiation and border studies. She is a member of Economic Geography and Regional Development Center (CEGARR) at the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development. Pavlína teaches the course GIS in Epidemiology.
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Collaborating researchers
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prof. Martin Bobák

social, environmental, behavioral, genetic and psychosocial determinants of chronic diseases, well-being
His main research interests concern social, environmental, behavioural, genetic and psychosocial determinants of chronic diseases and well-being in Central and Eastern Europe, i.e. in societies undergoing rapid social change. He is a proffessor Institute of Epidemiology & Health at the University College London in the United Kindgdom and a researcher in the UCL Central and Eastern European Health Research Group. 
​PUBLICATIONS and PROJECTS
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prof. Hynek Pikhart

SES during life course, poplutaiong ageing and changes in cognitive and physical functions, health behaviours and health inequalities, social, behavioral and biological risk factors of health
He obtained a master's degree at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the Charles University. In 1995 he finished MSc at the LSHTM. In 2002 he defended his PhDin epidemiology at the University College London. His work concerns social and psychosocial determinants of health of different European populations. In particulat he works on The Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) Study, project concentrating on determinants of poor health status in samples of general population in Russia, Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.

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RNDr. Jan Jarolímek, Ph.D., MBA

medical geography, health geography
​lékařská geografie, geografie zdravotního stavu obyvatelstva
In 2013 he defended his rigorous proceedings in the field of Social geography and regional development at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno. He received MBA degree from ESMA Barcelona in 2011. From 2006 to 2009 he worked as the Head of Analysis, Statistics and IT division in the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. After that he was the Head of Strategy and Management of Public Health department. In April 2009 he was named the Deputy Director of economical and technical activities in the Public Health Authority of Central Bohemia.
In 2017 he received PhD at the Faculty of Science, Charles University with the dissertation on socio-economic determinants of occupational diseases. Currently his work concerns occupational health and a quality of work environment in the relation to health. 
ORCID
PhD students