TSG : tijdschrift voor gezondheidswetenschappen最新文献

Students in special secondary education (VSO) and practical education (PrO) are not routinely included in the national Youth Health Monitor. In six GGD regions, however, this group was monitored during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to students in regular secondary education, VSO/PrO students report feeling healthy and happy slightly less often, use substances less frequently (but use more frequently when they do), and report slightly higher levels of short-term loneliness. Young people, parents, and professionals plea for structural, inclusive monitoring in all school types to enable the development of more effective policies and tailored support. This may require adaptations to questionnaires and calls for a structural funding and active involvement of young people themselves.

Numerous Dutch municipalities implement health promotion approaches focusing on themes such as smoking, exercising and healthy weight. Learning-based Monitoring and Evaluation (LME) is a crucial component that is often implemented as part of these approaches, to a larger or lesser degree. This article describes how eleven projects within the program Gemeenten Samen Gezond ('Municipalities Healthy Together') implement LME, and what perceived core elements of LME are: involving a diverse group of stakeholders, a process of cyclical action and adjustment, collecting information and monitoring, sustainability and continuation of LME and the program, and transferability to other settings. We recommend that stakeholders apply LME in a way that matches with their local context, purpose and research/practice question at hand.

Generally, the health condition of those with higher socioeconomic status (SES) is better compared to those with lower SES. Electronic health (eHealth) interventions provide an unique opportunity to improve health and lifestyle of populations that are difficult to reach with more traditional interventions. The application of appropriate strategies to reach low SES populations with eHealth interventions is thus of major importance to reduce health inequalities. Therefore, the aim of this study was to provide insight into the reach, sample characteristics and costs of three pre-planned strategies for recruiting adults aged fifty years and older with low SES for participation in an online physical activity intervention. The intervention consisted of computer-tailored physical activity advice at three occasions and an integrated activity tracker. Recruitment took place via gyms, invitation letters via a municipality and social media advertisements. Additional procedures were followed to reach specifically the low SES group. Response rates, sociodemographic characteristics and costs per strategy were assessed. The highest response was shown for the municipality approach (n = 281), followed by social media (n = 71) and gyms (n = 45). The most low-educated participants were reached via the municipality (n = 128), followed by social media (n = 9) and gyms (n = 8). Recruitment costs were € 2142,37 for the municipality approach, € 96,81 for social media and € 0 for gyms. In conclusion, recruitment via the municipality approach has the highest potential for reaching low SES participants of the three applied strategies, although the higher recruitment costs need to be taken into account.

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity among adults has increased significantly in recent decades, particularly in low-income neighbourhoods. To better understand this trend, we examined the underlying dynamics driving this rise in Dutch cities.

Method: Using Group Model Building (GMB) with thirteen scientific experts, we developed a system map illustrating the feedbackloops contributing to the increase in obesity. Based on a system analysis, we identified the key dynamics that have driven obesity in low-income neighbourhoods over the past 30 years.

Results: The rise in obesity results from the interaction between four subsystems: the food environment, the physical activity environment, the socioeconomic environment, and the socio-political environment. Three core dynamics illustrate how these subsystems interact: 1) adverse socioeconomic conditions and an unhealthy food environment reinforce each other, 2) social distance between social groups and adverse socioeconomic conditions reinforce each other and 3) social distance between institutions and communities and the normalisation of unhealthy behaviours reinforce each other.

Discussion: The system map highlights the need for a broad, cross-sectoral approach that addresses the underlying causes of obesity, such as adverse socioeconomic conditions, unhealthy social norms, and distrust in government. As long as these structural drivers persist, isolated policy measures will have only limited impact. Effective policies must therefore focus on breaking the key dynamics that sustain the system.

Since 2026, the Postmortem Evaluation of Sudden Unexplained Death in Youth (PESUDY) procedure has been available in all University Medical Centers (UMCs) in the Netherlands. This postmortem investigation in unexpected and unexplained death of minors, can be carried out with the consent of parents. The PESUDY procedure, in which a cause of death was demonstrated in 71%, has already demonstrated the valuable impact for the surviving relatives. Partly due to these PESUDY results, the Netherlands Organization of Health Research and Development (ZonMw) made funding available to implement a structured procedure for suddenly deceased young adults from 18 to 45 years old, which has shown major regional differences up to now. In this article, we explain the run-up to this funding. We also describe the postmortem research protocol that has already been implemented in the Northeast of the Netherlands, the future distribution of this pilot and the upcoming amendment of the Burial and Cremation Act.

More and more municipalities and health promotion organizations are using multidisciplinary learning communities (LCs) to stimulate learning together, collaboration, and taking action. However, there is limited experience with monitoring and optimizing activities by LC facilitators. In this article, we discuss how facilitators, together with LC members, can optimize LCs. We share the application of two in-depth methods, including a systems map based on qualitative interviews and an LC questionnaire. We describe the information obtained, the advantages and disadvantages experienced, and the ways in which the information was used as feedback to optimize LCs.

Integrated cross-sectoral collaboration is seen as the key to success in meeting complex challenges in the health of and care for pregnant women, parents, and expectant parents. South Limburg focuses on establishing and optimizing the collaboration between the medical, social, and public health sectors. The result is a regional Solid Start Integrated Approach for providing appropriate support to families in a vulnerable situation. This article describes the development, design, and lessons learned of this integrated approach.