Population Health

Population health is the health of populations defined by a variety of factors, such as care practice, disease status, environmental and psychosocial characteristics. This population health “lens” can be used at the level of the patient, practice, institution, and community, promoted via interprofessional collaboration, data sharing and different content and organization of care at all stages of life.

Aim and focus

The research programme Population health aims to to improve health, functioning and quality of life across the lifespan and strives for health equity and sustainability in the organization of healthcare.

Our research activities focus on all aspects of population health and can be grouped into the following interdisciplinary research areas:

  • Proactive primary care
  • Transmural care
  • Health system governance
  • Behavioral (e-health) interventions
  • Health inequalities
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Aim and focus

The research programme Population health aims to to improve health, functioning and quality of life across the lifespan and strives for health equity and sustainability in the organization of healthcare.

Our research activities focus on all aspects of population health and can be grouped into the following interdisciplinary research areas:

  • Proactive primary care
  • Transmural care
  • Health system governance
  • Behavioral (e-health) interventions
  • Health inequalities

Overarching themes in this research programme is the use of routine data linkages (i.e. via the Extramural Leiden Academic Network, the connection between different types of care such as specialized care, welfare or lifestyle support and telemonitoring, and the integration of research with training and education of medical students and residents.

Interdisciplinary research

Within this research program strong synergy is created between public health, primary and long term (elderly) care, data science, medical anthropology, health psychology and policy and implementation science.

The population health research programme collaborates with  many other departments at the LUMC, such as the departments of lung diseases, medical decision-making, gynaecology, paediatrics, (child) psychiatry, geriatrics, rehabilitation, cardiology, oncology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases, endocrinology (diabetes), clinical epidemiology and biostatistics.

Living labs

An important pillar of the research programme is the utilization of living labs, a concept characterized by open innovative research in co-creation with end users (i.e. citizens/patients, healthcare professionals). This is for example done in the Medical Delta National e-health living lab (NeLL) as well as the Population Health Living Lab in The Hague in collaboration with the Leiden institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Position in international context

The research programme has excellent international collaborations for example within the League of European Research Universities (LERU) such as with the Catholic University Leuven (Primary Care) and the University of Oxford (Maternal and Child Population Health) as well as the European University of Wellbeing (EUNIWELL) consortium (Wellbeing&Health Arena).

We make use of existing international networks such as the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), The European Health Psychology Society and the WHO Global Alliance Against Respiratory Disease. The programme has been successful in various international research grants such as the H2020 Fresh Air Project, the GC1000 project and the MySupport project of the EU Joint programme for Neurodegenerative Disease Research.

Research groups

Relevant websites