Dr. Youngwon Kim joined the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) LKS Faculty of Medicine in 2019. Dr. Kim received his post-doctoral training in the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, UK. He earned his Ph.D in kinesiology and a minor in statistics from Iowa State University, USA: a master’s degree in exercise science from the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, USA, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Hanyang University - ERICA, South Korea. Before joining HKU, Dr. Kim worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, USA.

As a physical activity epidemiologist, Dr. Kim has focused his research on understanding the preventive role of physical activity from an epidemiological perspective. Specifically, he has examined the associations of physical activity and fitness with various mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer outcomes using data from the UK Biobank project, an ongoing national cohort study of >500,000 UK adults. More recently, his research has examined gene-environment interactions, with physical activity or fitness as an environmental component, to explore whether an increased genetic risk of chronic diseases can be offset through physical activity or fitness. In addition, he has initiated clinical trials to determine the effects of genetic risk communication and wearable device functions on changes in behavioral outcomes.

His primary research interest also lies in improving methodologies for conducting physical activity epidemiology research. Dr. Kim's publications in this line of research have focused on evaluating the utility and validity of various accelerometer-based wearable devices and self-reports to assess physical activity in both children and adults.