Marieke Adriaanse is Professor Behavioural Interventions in Population Health. This is a combined chair of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW), which is part of the interdisciplinary Population Health programme. She works at the department of Public Health and Primary Care on the LUMC Campus The Hague and at the department of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology in Leiden.

More information about Marieke Adriaanse

Marieke Adriaanse is Professor Behavioural Interventions in Population Health. This is a combined chair of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW), which is part of the interdisciplinary Population Health programme. She works at the department of Public Health and Primary Care on the LUMC Campus The Hague and at the department of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology in Leiden.

Behavioural interventions in population health

Insight into the contextual and psychological mechanisms driving (un)healthy behaviour is necessary in order to develop effective strategies and interventions that promote healthy behaviour. Behavioral science therefore has a key role in the interdisciplinary approach to health promotion and disease prevention. Marieke aims to apply her expertise on behaviour change as central element in the research and teaching program of the interdisciplinary program Population Health at the Health Campus The Hague as well as within the hub Behavioral Insights for Health and well-being at the Health, Medical and Neuropychology unit. 

Research

Currently, four central themes in Marieke's research are:

• Behavior change techniques and interventions for health promotion, in particular for people with low socio-economic status. A big part of her research involves developing and testing self-regulation strategies that aid individuals in their efforts to behave more healthily. An example of such a strategy is the use of cue-based planning (implementation intentions). In addition to self-regulation strategies she also studies the use of nudging. Nudges are an umbrella term for strategies that alter the environment, or choice architecture, in such a way that it becomes more likely that individuals make a desired (healthy) choice. In addition to studying their effectiveness, she is also interested in understanding when nudges are considered acceptable and how nudging affects individuals’ autonomy. For all of these strategies, she is particularly interested in how and if they also work for people with low socio-economic status. Unfortunately, many interventions in the domain of health promotion are mainly effective for people with high socio-economic status, and result in increasing already existing health inequalities. In order to build better interventions that are equally or even more effective for people with low socio-economic status, we need to improve our understanding of how and when behavior change techniques (the building blocks of interventions) work in these populations.
   
• Habit vs. intention. A large part of our behaviour is habitual. Habits can help us to maintain healthy behaviours when we are stressed or tired. On the other hand, habit formation also means that unhealthy behaviors that have become habits are particularly resistant to change. She studies the interplay between deliberate (e.g., good intentions) and more automatic processes (habits) on behaviour and behaviour change. She seeks to better understand how habits are formed, how we can support people in breaking unwanted habits, and which factors and strategies promote healthy habit formation as a key to behavioral maintenance in patients and professionals. A very brief accessible lecture (in Dutch) for De Universiteit van Nederland in which she explains why habits can make it difficult for us to act on our good intentions can be found here.
   
• Sustainability and health(care). There is a big overlap between goals related to promoting sustainable and healthy behaviors. For example, both generally require giving up immediate rewards for more abstract future rewards, both involve risk communication and changing existing habits and norms. With her research she is trying to apply insights regarding behavior change obtained in the health domain to sustainability, and, preferably, to design interventions that promote individual as well as planetary health. She also studies how healthcare can become more sustainable. Increasing pressure on our natural living environment (e.g., due to climate change) will also increase the pressure on healthcare in the future. However, the healthcare sector is  ironically also partly responsible for climate change and environmental pollution. Therefore, we are studying behavioral determinants and effective education programs and interventions for promoting sustainability in healthcare.
   
• Behavior change of health care professionals. Ambitions related to prevention but also to sustainability mean that not only patients, but also health care professionals need to change their behavior. For example, General Practitioners are asked to prescribe fewer pills and focus more on lifestyle to prevent rather than treat disease. She studies the determinants of this behavior change in health care professionals as well as the effectiveness of self-regulation as well as contextual intervention to support health care professionals in these changes.

Teaching

Marieke teaches in various courses at the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology department on topics such as Health Promotion and Primary Prevention. At the LUMC campus The Hague she is a lecturer  in the interdisciplinary Master Population Health Management.

Career

Marieke received her PhD (2010) in Health Psychology at Utrecht University. After that, she worked at Utrecht University as an Assistant Professor (2010-2015) and Associate Professor (2016-2021). Since May 2021 she is a Professor at Leiden University.

Open science, recognition and rewards

Marieke is the Recognition and Rewards Ambassador of Leiden University’s Academia in Motion Programme and an advocate for Open Science.

Activities