Ehealth_technology
The prevalence of anxiety- and depression-related complaints in adolescents and emerging adults has risen over the last decade, but youth face barriers when seeking professional help. Many therefore rely on social media for mental health information. Online short videos (OSVs) are a new form of online health information, which may come with risks and […]
People with substance use problems differ in the mechanisms triggering and maintaining substance use, therefore it is necessary to understand personalized mechanisms to discuss these during treatment and choose appropriate strategies to change the substance use behavior. In this project, we aim to use personalized ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and derived statistical models to help […]
The prevalence of anxiety- and depression-related complaints in adolescents and emerging adults has risen over the last decade, but youth face barriers when seeking professional help. Many therefore rely on social media for mental health information. Online short videos (OSVs) are a new form of online health information, which may come with risks and benefits […]
A healthy lifestyle – a healthy diet and regular physical activity – significantly contributes to the prevention of chronic diseases. People with lower socioeconomic position (SEP) often have unhealthier lifestyles compared to those with higher SEP. However, interventions aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle often struggle to reach the lower SEP population and may even […]
Mental health problems affect about 84 million people across the EU. Refugees and other migrants are particularly at risk of developing mental health problems due to stressors they encounter before, during, and after their migration process. Prevalence rates for some mental health problems, such as posttraumatic stress and psychotic disorders, are higher among refugees and […]
This PhD project focuses on the relationship between exposure to specific persuasive health communication and mental well-being. More specifically, our aim is to explore the relationship between exposure to specific message characteristics (like fear or conflicting information) and subsequent mental well-being and the role of mental well-being before exposure to a specific message in its […]
This postdoc project aims to map the digital food environment on social media (YouTube). The emergence of social media has led to the development of a new aspect of the digital food environment, which consists of food-related advertisements and posts. This collection of food-related content may disproportionately feature non-healthy options due to companies promoting these […]
This PhD project focuses gathering evidence from healthcare professionals, migrant patients, and patients’ caregivers on the traditional and digital communication strategies used in language discordant consultations for ensuring an effective medical communication while mitigating language barriers. Using these evidence, the aim is to develop and evaluate a (digital) decision-aid for healthcare professionals and patients to […]
Falls among adults aged 65 years and older are a severe public health problem. To aid healthcare professionals in providing targeted fall preventive advice VeiligheidNL developed ‘de Valanalyse’. This is a multifactorial fall risk screening and assessment tool. This paper-based tool is designed to aid healthcare professionals (1) identify increased fall risk; (2) assess for […]
Among senior citizens (65+), falls are the leading cause of injuries. Medication is a major risk factor for falls. General Practitioners (GPs) struggle with fall-related medication management for older patients, as they lack tools to assess individualized risks. Furthermore, older patients themselves are not properly equipped to engage in the joint management of their medication. […]
With this project we aim to gain insight into the consequences of cancer patient’s (and their close relatives) online health seeking behavior. In specific, their search for online cancer information. We will study which patients use online health information (their personal, medical and psychological characteristics), how they search for information, when, with which purpose and […]
Over the years, incidence numbers of head and neck cancers, specifically oral cancer, have significantly increased in the Netherlands. Surgery is considered to be the primary treatment of choice followed by radiotherapy. The treatment decision depends on the one hand on the tumor and the recommendation of the treatment team, and on the other hand […]
For adults aged 65 years and older, falls are the leading cause of injury-related mortality and hospitalization. Two risk factors for injurious falls are 1) having experienced a previous fall, which stresses the need to prevent and reduce falls; and 2) the use of certain fall-risk-increasing-drugs (FRIDs). Physicians find FRID withdrawal in older adults often […]
This PhD project aims to develop and evaluate an online value clarification tool (OnVaCT) to clarify patients’ values around end-of-life decisions and support them in the decision to participate (or not) in early phase clinical trials. These trials are experimental treatments in which the safety, tolerance and mechanism of a new (not yet proven) compound […]
Ideally, conversational agents should be able to adapt to human users. However, state-of-the-art AI systems currently lack sophisticated adaptation capabilities. Our long-term goal is to develop artificial agents that can adapt to individuals/user groups at any level (age, expertise, language style, etc.) and that are perceived as trustable by users. The current project focuses on […]
Regular physical activity (PA) reduces the risks of multiple health problems among all age groups, also when health problems are already present. This Active4Life project aims to generate new scientific and practical knowledge and insights relevant to stimulate and maintain PA in different subpopulations of adults (adults, older adults, healthy and patient populations) using tailored […]
Digitalisation of society has led to the creation of artificial conversational agents with which humans can communicate about a myriad of topics, including health. Chatbots are a popular example of conversational agents and, in essence, they are computer programs with humanlike communicative skills. They rely on dialog systems that process textual input known as Natural Language Processing […]
Many adolescents and young adults consume a lot of alcohol, which is related to serious negative consequences for both youth and society. A recent development is that young people nowadays place a lot of posts about this alcohol use on Social Networking Sites (SNS), such as Facebook and Instagram. Alarmingly, most of these messages show […]
An unhealthy lifestyle is the main cause of chronic diseases, resulting in reduced quality of life and preventable healthcare costs. As budgets for healthcare become increasingly limited, low-cost lifestyle improvement strategies are needed. A strategy proven to be (cost-)effective is online individually tailored health communication. To date, tailoring entailed adjusting what information was provided, but […]
Tobacco smoking is the most prevalent cause of preventable non communicable diseases, like cancer. Many Dutch smokers therefore attempt to quit smoking, but only 4-10% of these quit attempts are successful. Evidence-based smoking cessation support tools, such as pharmacotherapy, counseling and online interventions, have been shown to double the chance of successful quitting. However, Dutch […]
Tobacco smoking is the most prevalent cause of preventable non communicable diseases, like cancer. Online computer-tailored interventions have already shown to be (cost-)effective in improving smoking cessation, over and above more static health communication, but effect sizes remain small. The large majority of the tailored interventions developed and tested so far only tailor the content […]
This project focuses on how online information should be presented to older cancer patients. In a randomised controlled trial, we investigate the effects of exposure to a website that is tailored to colorectal cancer patients’ mode preferences (offering choices between text only, text with illustrations, video or a combination of these modes) as compared to […]
The PhD project focuses on communication about and with older (≥70 years) cancer patients. This project focuses on how web-based tools can facilitate (1) communication among healthcare providers to discuss optimal treatment plans for their patients and (2) how to increase the likelihood that health messages will be understood and processed by older cancer patients […]
Providing information to patients is crucial within cancer care. As the Internet is becoming an increasingly valuable source of information, it is important to consider the rapidly aging population when designing online cancer materials. Yet, the lack of studies and inconsistent findings on how to optimally present online information to older populations call for theory- […]
More than 40% of all cancer patients in the Netherlands is older than 70 years. Cancer treatment in elderly requires special attention due to, highly prevalent additional health problems (eg regarding hearing, memory, co-morbidity). These problems can complicate the treatment and the education about the treatment. In addition, older patients express their needs and preferences […]
This research program focuses on researching the uses and implications of personalized information and communication for individuals, society, and information law & policy. One of the specific areas of this program is personalized health communication. Personalized, tailored, and patient-centered health services offer opportunities to improve people’s well-being. A particular area of interest will be the […]
Almost two out of three Internet users have already looked for health information on the web, making it one of the main sources of health information. Often users do not follow up their search with a physician, putting themselves at risk of acting upon wrong information. As studies on health websites have highlighted high variance […]
During the last decades the traditional paternalistic approach to the doctor-patient relationship has shifted towards a more patient-centered one; while the physicians’ role becomes less dominant, patients are increasingly taking on an active role in decisions regarding their own health. In this context, being able to obtain and understand all the information necessary to make […]
Today, people are increasingly expected to act responsible with respect to their health and to make informed health decisions. To support this, health information is widely available, for example on the Internet. For many people, however, processing health information is difficult due to limited health literacy. To make health information more accessible to this group, […]
Elderly people with cancer are at increased risk of miscommunication with their caregivers. This risk is even more strongly present in the case of non-Western elderly patients with cancer, due to a combination of linguistic and socio-cultural factors. Both culture-related beliefs about illness, health and communication, as well as a relatively low ‘health literacy’, and […]