Lifelines Researchers Community Event
The second edition of the Lifelines Researchers Community event was organized by Lifelines and Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health to build bridges between researchers and facilitate the exchange of knowledge. Lifelines represents a treasure trove of data waiting to be discovered. 'Sharing is healthy' is our motto in this regard. More and more researchers, including many Aletta researchers, conduct their research using Lifelines data and bio-samples. This multidisciplinary approach contributes to impactful research for more healthy years.
Programme 2024
We enjoyed an engaging afternoon surrounded by fellow Lifelines researchers and a lecture of our keynote speaker Melinda Mills on the importance of cohorts and biobank collections for public health.
During the event, Lifelines researchers met with Aletta’s network. An interesting plenary discussion and brainstorm took place, as well as update sessions on FAIR data and innovative data collection. After a short break, several Lifelines researchers pitched their research to their colleagues.
Break-out sessions
Multiple researchers from the Lifelines community pitched their research in the context of personalised health and environmental research in public health.
| Pitches on personalised health | Pitches on environmental research in public health |
| Jelle Slager on the implementation of a pharmacogenetic passport | Yinjie Zhu on tipping the balance of protein transition |
| Andreia Abud da Silva Costa on modeling lifestyle-related health inequity (MOLHI) | Bo Krause and Marit Slootweg on participation in society: using Lifelines and CBS data in combination with enriching interviews to study complex public health problems |
| Dorien Beeres on how the habits of your neighbors might be influencing your health | Mingjie (Frederick) Duan on ultra-processed foods; are they ultra-bad? |
| Marije Kooistra on complex data to policy insights for greater regional well-being | Dominique Mollet on legal epidemiology: incorporating laws into your public health research |
| Olivier Steen on connecting the dots between mental, functional, and physical health | Erika Roth and Jens Bos on a medicine use perspective on the intersection of public health and planetary health. |
| Yvonne Blom on Data Workspace Mental Health (Datawerkplaats Mentale gezondheid): platform for data and insights | Chris Thio on the impact of the environment upon health: an integrative exposome approach |
Pitches on personalised health
Pitch by Jelle Slager
Building a future-proof approach for the implementation of a pharmacogenetic passport in our healhtcare system.
Pitch by Andreia Abud da Silva Costa
Modeling lifestyle-related health inequity by clustering of health inequity and lifestyle habits. Is there a relation, and what are other correlates?
Pitch by Dorien Beeres
Join me for a critical reflection on my study on the role of local norms on individual health (behaviors). Come and discover if smoking and obesity in your community might shape your own health behaviors, and discuss with me whether you think we should target prevention efforts based on neighborhood norms to combat inequalities in health more effectively.
Pitch by Marije Kooistra
Navigating the space between simple dashboards and complex analyses can be difficult. How can we translate our data into clear insights that enable policymakers to make impactful decisions on regional well-being without ignoring complexities such as the temporal structure of lifelines data?
Pitch by Olivier Steen
Insight into the relationships between mental disorders, functional disorders, and physical diseases, examining shared risk factors and health outcomes.
Pitch by Yvonne Blom
A platform for transition healthcare to health and integral approach for future health policy. To assist regional policy makers and healthcare professionals in making informed decisions an implementing effective preventive measures.
Pitches on public health
Pitch by Yinjie Zhu
Agent-based modeling, a method from the system sciences, can simulate the development of chronic diseases as emergent outcomes influenced by health beliefs, social norms, lifestyle behaviors, medication compliance, and biomarkers. These factors change stochastically, dynamically, and interactively. By collaborating with public health stakeholders and citizens, agent-based models can offer insights into preventing chronic diseases and allow for testing policy scenarios in silico before they are applied in the real world. My model explores whether, and to what extent, promoting plant-based protein consumption at worksites can lead to positive spillover effects at home, potentially informing effective interventions for healthier lifestyles.
Pitch by Bo Krause & Marit Slootweg
Our research aims to gain insight into factors that are associated with societal participation, focusing on labour underutilization and mental health inequalities. By combining Lifelines and CBS data with in-depth interviews, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of individual and regional contexts, providing insights to improve social inclusion, well-being, and inform more effective policy-making.
Pitch by Mingjie (Frederick) Duan
“Eat less ultra-processed food—they are bad for your health!” You’ve likely heard this before and may even be considering it for your well-being. But, hold on, what exactly is ultra-processed food? Items like bread, spreadable butter, cookies, and cheese can all be ultra-processed. However, are all of them truly as harmful as they are claimed to be? By studying Lifelines data, we aimed to clear up the confusion. I’d like to share with you: What are our eating habits for ultra-processed foods? How do different ultra-processed foods and eating habits affect health in different ways?
Pitch by Dominique Mollet
Laws have an important impact on (public) health: they can, for example, help ensure access to safe and nutritious foods, and access to adequate health care. Laws that are not adequately drafted, implemented or enforced can, however, create stigma, increase inequalities and have a bad impact on (public) health. Legal epidemiology, the scientific study and deployment of law as a factor in the cause, distribution and prevention of disease and injury in a population, systematically studies the impact of laws on public health
Pitch by Erika Roth and Jens Bos
Insights on the effects of pharmaceutical residues on public health and the environment. How can we pave the path for an integral approach to improve our (drinking)water and soil?
Pitch by Chris Thio
How to identify environmental drivers of disease? How should we navigate complex, messy, imprecisely measured, observational data to tease out causality and come to actionable findings? During this session, I’d like to discuss how we can learn from, and perhaps join forces with other fields ranging from genomics to economics.