Social Epidemiology
“The spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has disproportionally affected lower socioeconomic groups. This emphasizes the need to understand how policies and interventions can prevent or reduce health inequalities.”
The spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has disproportionally affected lower socioeconomic groups. This emphasizes the need to understand how policies and interventions can prevent or reduce health inequalities. The research group of Social Epidemiology monitors inequalities across Europe, and investigates explanations of inequalities in early child development, healthy ageing and health behavior. We investigate healthy living environments, evaluate natural experiments, and increasingly focus on understanding the contribution of interventions and policies to health inequalities from a complexity perspective. We closely collaborate with professionals in and outside the health domain in the city of Rotterdam.
Highlights
of Social Epidemiology in 2020
The urban environment and healthy ageing: the MINDMAP project
Urbanization, ageing and widening inequalities within cities have enormous implications for public mental health. While city life poses major challenges for older citizens, cities also offer opportunities for public health interventions that promote mental health and ensure the delivery of health care services for older persons. We coordinated the Horizon2020 funded MINDMAP project, in which harmonized data on urban characteristics, such as green spaces, were linked to mental wellbeing of older individuals in cities in Europe and Canada. Results emphasize the need to invest in green and socially cohesive cities.
The evaluation of local natural experiments
A constant characteristic of cities is that they continually change. Changes in the built and social environment caused by factors outside the control of researchers, offer important possibilities for interventions. They provide unique opportunities to strengthen the evidence base of public heath measures. In close cooperation with the Rotterdam Municipality, we evaluated natural experiments in Rotterdam, including the introduction of playgrounds and the organizations of major sport events, and contributed to methodology for evaluating natural experiments.
