Amsterdam University Medical Center

Netherlands

Amsterdam University Medical Center’s mission is to promote healthy behaviours in their broad societal context and to prevent health conditions and reduce health inequalities – through high-quality and impactful research, education and dissemination. Amsterdam UMC focus primarily on: 1) the prevalence and causes of health behaviours (e.g. nutrition, physical activity, sports, sedentary behaviour, smoking) and their consequences for health and health inequalities, and 2) identifying, developing, implementing, and evaluating solutions to health behaviour problems to improve health and reduce health inequalities. Their research covers a wide range of topics, such as: food systems, lifestyle medicine, physical activity surveillance, sport injury prevention, and tobacco control.

Hidde P. Van der Ploeg

Hidde van der Ploeg is associate professor at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of Amsterdam UMC. He holds a PhD (2006) and degrees in Epidemiology and Human Movement Science, all from the VU University Amsterdam. He chairs the section Health Behaviour & Prevention in the Department of Public and Occupational Health, and co-chairs the Health Behaviors & Chronic Disease research program in the Amsterdam Public Health research institute. His main research expertise is in physical activity and sedentary behaviours in relation to public and occupational health. His main focusses are on 1) physical activity and sedentary behaviour interventions, 2) epidemiology of physical activity and sedentary behaviour, 3) measurement and surveillance of physical activity and sedentary behaviours.

Femke van Nassau

Femke van Nassau is a human movement scientist, currently working as senior researcher at the Department of Public and Occupational Health and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute at the Amsterdam UMC, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her PhD focused on the scale-up of the school-based obesity prevention DOiT programme in the Netherlands and she developed an explorative implementation score to link implementation measures to outcomes. Her main research topics are: 1) development, evaluation, implementation and scale up of physical activity and sedentary behaviour lifestyle interventions for adults and children; 2) measurement of sedentary and physical activity behavior; and 3) scaling up of interventions, linking implementation strategies to determinants, designing and conducting process evaluations, and measurement of implementation. Femke is involved in several health promotion projects in different settings.

Christiaan Vis

Christiaan has a background in innovation management and ethics, and obtained his Ph.D. in implementation research in clinical psychology at the VU Amsterdam. Currently he works as a senior researcher at the Department of Public and Occupational Health and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute at the Amsterdam UMC. He also holds a research position at the section for research-based innovation, Forhelse Research centre for digital mental health services Division of Psychiatry Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway. Christiaan engages in implementation research in public health. His research revolves around developing and testing methods for developing implementation strategies through tailored implementation. In this area of research, local stakeholders and settings dictate the action to be taken. The process to come to an effective and efficient strategy is thought to be generic.

Nikita Hensen

Nikita Hensen is a PhD Candidate in the PIECES Project and works at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of the Amsterdam UMC. She completed both her Bachelor and Master’s degree in Health Sciences from VU University Amsterdam, with a special focus on International Public Health. She is also a board member of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, of the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute at the Amsterdam UMC. Her research focuses on 1) implementation research in the field of primary cancer prevention (PCP), including determinants, strategies, process evaluations and measurements of implementation, 2) the causes of health behaviors (specifically for PCP) and their consequences for health and health inequalities, 3) developing a diversity-responsive -and inclusive implementation approach, and 4) qualitative research.

Rixt Smit

Rixt Smit is currently a PhD candidate in the Smoke-Free Sports project and works at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of the Amsterdam UMC. She completed a Bachelor’s degree Nutrition and Dietetics at the Hanzehogeschool Groningen and a Master’s degree Health Sciences with a focus on Prevention & Public Health at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. From mid-2024 she will join the PIECES project as a Postdoc. Her research revolves around 1) using a mixed methods design to study determinants and strategies of scaling-up health promotion interventions, 2) setting up a shared knowledge agenda for the implementation of Exercise is Medicine in the Netherlands, and 3) smoking, physical activity and smoke-free policies.