SINGAPORE – In Toa Payoh, surveyors are making house visits, spending up to 45 mins in each home to gather information about residents’ health and lifestyles.

The questions range from what they do for a living to how many friends and relatives they connect with at least once a month and whether they have caregiving responsibilities. All the answers feed into a five-year research programme aimed at improving residents’ health outcomes.

The Health4All@Toa Payoh study by the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) was launched in March 2025. It has recruited about half of its target of 4,000 participants aged between 35 and 70 years.

In this longitudinal study, participants – Singapore citizens or Permanent Residents residing in Toa Payoh – will be followed over five years through annual online surveys. Interviews and focus group discussions will also be held with groups of participants.

Researchers want to understand how non-medical factors, such as daily activities, social networks, and living environments, affect the residents’ health. Such factors, known as the social determinants of health, are widely believed to contribute to 80 per cent of health outcomes, while medical care accounts for an estimated 20 per cent.

The data collected will be used to design personalised health solutions for residents.

The study comes as Singapore pivots from traditional patient-centred care to a resident-centred approach. This is to help the population take charge of their health so that they can spend more years in good health as they age.

A key move was in July 2023 when Singapore launched Healthier SG to get residents to enrol with a family doctor and focus on preventive care.  

Professor Teo Yik Ying, vice-president for global health and dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at NUS, described Healthier SG as the first major reform of Singapore’s health system. Rather than focusing solely on treating the sick, the programme aims to help the population stay healthy.

But designing solutions to achieve that goal – which could include getting the community to form online networks – requires a deeper understanding of people’s lives, said Associate Professor Angela Chow, the programme director of Health4All@Toa Payoh.

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