NEXUS is a community of academic and clinical researchers and graduate students pursuing health behaviour research from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including Nursing, Public Health, Women's and Children's Health, Educational Psychology, and Geography. Its mission is to develop knowledge, interventions, and policy recommendations that are based on a critical analysis of the social contexts that 1) create barriers to health, 2) affect health seeking and 3) influence system responses. NEXUS offers a rich training environment focusing on social contexts of health behaviour and is building expanded research programs related to these 3 themes in health behaviour using the analytical lenses of gender, diversity and place.

NEXUS' role is to promote and support innovative research that extends understanding of how health behaviours are shaped by social conditions. NEXUS also strives to link its research with other health researchers, health practitioners and policy makers to enable the development of interventions that change social conditions so as to improve health.

NEXUS works in partnership with NAHBR, UBC School of Nursing, UBC Okanagan-Faculty of Health and Social Development, UBC School of Population and Public Health, BC Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, BC Centre for Disease Control, UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, UBC Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, ICEBERGS and Centre for Addictions Research BC and is funded by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

Traditional approaches to promoting healthful behaviour that focus primarily on individuals are theoretically and methodologically limited, frequently blame those who are in poor health, and convey the message that health is largely the result of individual choices. Analysis of individual physiological and psychological factors cannot adequately explain health behaviours without also understanding the complex and multiple social, economic, and environmental conditions in which those behaviours occur. Conceptualizing health in this way can lead to innovation in the way health policies are conceived and framed and in the ways health services are delivered.