ProfessorDavid Dunstan

Professor Dunstan’s research program examines how sitting, standing and moving throughout the day influence cardiometabolic and brain health, and how this evidence can be translated into scalable “sit less, move more” solutions in real-world settings. His work spans population-level epidemiology, tightly controlled laboratory studies and pragmatic trials in workplaces and healthcare environments.

Research focus

• Epidemiology of adult sedentary behaviour and physical activity, including prevalence, time‑trends and associations with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality and healthy ageing.
• Design and implementation of experimental trials that test the acute and longer‑term health effects of regularly breaking up prolonged sitting with light or moderate activity in adults (and in some studies, children and youth).
• Real‑world behaviour change trials that evaluate interventions targeting sitting less and moving more in adults, particularly in desk‑based occupations and in people living with, or at high risk of, chronic disease.
• Translation of research evidence into guidelines, policy and practice, including contributions to international recommendations on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and diabetes care.

Knowledge areas

• Behavioural epidemiology
• Physical activity, sedentary behaviour and type 2 diabetes
• Biological and physiological mechanisms underpinning sedentary behaviour–related risk
• Real‑world sedentary behaviour change and workplace interventions
• Public health and chronic disease prevention

 Selected projects

Stand Up Australia program (2009–2015)
The Stand Up Australia program comprises a series of workplace intervention trials that generated foundational evidence on reducing prolonged sitting among office workers. Across more than seven trials, including the NHMRC‑funded Stand Up Victoria 12‑month cluster randomised trial with a large Australian Government department, the program tested organisational, environmental and individual strategies—alone and in combination—to help workers stand up, sit less and move more during the workday. These studies showed that activity‑promoting changes in desk‑based workplaces are feasible, acceptable and compatible with productivity, and can produce substantial (around 1.5 hours less sitting per 8‑hour workday) and sustained (up to 12 months) reductions in sitting time, alongside improvements in selected cardiometabolic biomarkers.

OPTIMISE Your Health trial (2018–2025)
OPTIMISE Your Health is an 18‑month randomised controlled trial, funded by NHMRC Project and Boosting Dementia Research grants, evaluating the effectiveness and cost‑effectiveness of a multi‑component “sit less, move more” intervention for desk‑based office workers living with type 2 diabetes. The intervention operates at environmental, intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, combining health coaching, a sit‑stand desktop workstation and an activity tracker to support sustained behaviour change. The trial is designed to provide unique evidence on how reducing sitting and increasing movement impacts glycaemic control, cardiometabolic risk and brain health in this high‑risk group.