Episode 2: Health Promotion
My name is Cloé Geboers and I represent the department of Health Promotion (HP) in the PhD Panel. I’m in my second year of my PhD, which is about the effects of tobacco taxation on smoking. I am aligned with Maastricht University and the Trimbos Institute. I’m usually at the Trimbos Institute, but you can find my colleagues at the Peter Debyeplein 1.
The people
Prof. Dr. Stef Kremers was the chair of our department. He is now vice-dean of FHML. Prof. Dr. Nanne de Vries acta as our ad-interim chair until a successor is appointed. Just over 100 people are working at the Department of Health Promotion, of which half are external (mostly external PhD students). Around 52 colleagues are regularly at the office in Maastricht, including 17 PhD students!
The research & education
Our department focusses on the promotion of public health and healthy behaviours. It refers to the process of enabling people to increase control over, and improve, their health. Researchers at our department are aligned with CAPHRI or NUTRIM. HP/CAPHRI researchers are involved in a range of topics: tobacco and health, alcohol abuse and dependency, HIV/AIDS, physical activity, nutrition, mental health, inequity in health and so on. Implementation and intervention-based research is common at our department, using qualitative and quantitative methods.
Education is given in the Bachelor in Health Sciences (BSc) and the Master in Health Education and Promotion (MSc).
The meetings
Our department hosts a range of meetings, such as department meetings, PhD-meetings, seminars. The seminars are accessible for people from other departments.
We are quite known as a “cozy/social” department, so staying connected before and during the pandemic luckily has not been a challenge: from daily challenges and dilemma’s in our slack group, to drinks in online café ‘t Heuske, and (online) game nights (big CAH-fans!).
Curious to know more about our department, or discuss possible collaborations? Reach out to me by mail via: c.geboers@maastrichtuniversity.nl