Unravelling the Determinants of Kidney Health in a Multi-Ethnic Asian Population

Kidney damage and loss of kidney function is a common and serious health problem in Singapore.

Currently, there is limited understanding from studies conducted in Singapore as to why kidney disease is more common here, why some groups are more affected, and how risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, lifestyle, environment and other factors can be linked to kidney disease. It is also not clear if our genes plays an important role for determining risk of kidney disease.

A better understanding of these factors predicting kidney disease will allow for policies and strategies aimed at prevention, early detection, better risk assessment and effective treatment of kidney disease. These will then prevent kidney failure and serious problems due to kidney disease, reduce need for dialysis treatment and improve general kidney health of the population.

In this project, we aim to determine the frequency of kidney disease in different groups, study the link between kidney disease with genes, chronic diseases, lifestyle and environmental factors in each group, the relative contribution of these factors driving differences in kidney disease risks across different groups, and develop an individualised risk assessment for the prevention and treatment of kidney disease in Singapore.