Background: Creating healthy and sustainable food environments within long-term healthcare facilities asks for a systemic approach. This study aimed to: (1) identify system dynamics underlying the food environment of long-term healthcare facilities, (2) formulate actions for changing the system to promote a healthy and sustainable food environment and (3) evaluate stakeholder perspectives about the process and progress towards action implementation up to one-year follow-up.
Methods: A group model building (GMB) approach was used during two workshops with stakeholders of five different long-term healthcare facilities in the Netherlands.
Background: Hospitals fulfill an important exemplary role in promoting health and well-being. It is therefore crucial to have a supportive food environment that stimulates healthy and sustainable food choices of patients, staff, and visitors. This qualitative study aimed to identify factors influencing the implementation of long-lasting actions to enhance the healthiness and sustainability of the food environment in the hospital setting in the Netherlands, from the perspective of different stakeholders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Dutch adolescents predominantly purchase unhealthy snacks in supermarkets, which negatively influence their health. The aim of this study was to investigate the short- and longer-term effects of a nutrition peer-education intervention in supermarkets on food purchases and determinants of food purchase behaviour among adolescents of different education levels.
Methods: We performed a quasi-experimental study in three supermarkets (two intervention and one comparison school) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Background: Over the past decades, the prevalence of obesity among adults has rapidly increased, particularly in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods. To better understand the complex mechanisms behind this trend, we created a system map exposing the underlying system driving obesity prevalence in socioeconomically deprived urban neighbourhoods over the last three decades in the Netherlands.
Methods: We conducted Group Model Building (GMB) sessions with a group of thirteen interdisciplinary experts to develop a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) of the obesogenic system.
Background: Unhealthy visual food cues in outdoor public spaces are external drivers of unhealthy diets. Food cues are visible situations associated with food-related memories. This study aimed to gain insight into the (un)healthy food cues residents notice in outdoor public spaces in Dutch municipalities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It remains unclear how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the mental health of different vulnerable groups. This study explores how mental health inequalities changed between 2014 (pre-COVID-19) and 2021 (during COVID-19) in the Netherlands across intersectional social strata defined by interplays of educational attainment, income level, gender, and age.
Methods: Using 2014 and 2021 self-reported cohort data on health and living conditions of the adult population of Eindhoven and surroundings (N = 1,157), a Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) was applied to explore intersectional inequalities in mental health in 2014, 2021, and in mental health changes (2014-2021).
Background: Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with poorer dietary habits and fewer family meals. Therefore, initiatives to empower families with a lower SES to adopt healthier meal practices are employed. The objective of this study was to evaluate a nationwide intervention "Dinner is served at 1-2-3 euros", developed by a Belgian retailer in collaboration with social organizations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Current local food environments encourage poor diets, posing a significant threat to public and planetary health. Acknowledging and addressing its inherent complexity is vital to making meaningful improvements to the food environment. Using a participatory approach with local stakeholders, this study aims to gain insight into the factors and mechanisms underlying the local food environment and to identify leverage points and system-based actions to foster healthy and sustainable local food environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: National food environment policies can contribute to the reduction of diet-related non-communicable diseases. Yet, their implementation in the Netherlands remains low. It has been hypothesized that the media can play a pivotal role in inducing spikes in policy attention, thereby shaping political action.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study explores socioeconomic differences in acceptability and preferences for policies that aim to reduce socioeconomic health inequalities. The investigated policies range from structural policies, requiring no individual agency, to agentic policies, which depend on the individual agency for behaviour change.
Methods: An online, cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1182 participants, stratified by education and representative of Dutch adults (aged 25-65) for age and gender.
Objective: To gain insight into the food availability, the perceived food environment, and social norm perceptions in favour of healthy and vegetarian food consumption at a festival.
Design: Two cross-sectional substudies were conducted to audit food and beverages at the festival, and to measure visitors' perceptions of the festival food environment (accessibility, affordability, availability, diversity, quality) and their social norms perceptions via a mobile survey.
Setting: Public music festival, the Netherlands.
Objective: To characterise the food environment of Dutch small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), encompassing physical, sociocultural, economic and policy features and to explore variations within SMEs according to company characteristics (number of employees, location of work and presence of worksite cafeteria).
Design: Online cross-sectional survey study of a representative Dutch SME sample by a panel agency.
Setting: Dutch SMEs.
Background: This study explores the role of health in daily life and needs of Dutch adults (aged 25-49) experiencing one or more forms of socioeconomic insecurity stemming from their financial, housing, or employment situations.
Methods: 28 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in the Netherlands between October 2022 and February 2023. The interview guide included questions on participants' socioeconomic situation, the role of health in their daily lives, their health-related and broader needs.
Background: Interest in applying a complex systems approach to understanding socioeconomic inequalities in health is growing, but an overview of existing research on this topic is lacking. In this systematic scoping review, we summarize the current state of the literature, identify shared drivers of multiple health and health behavior outcomes, and highlight areas ripe for future research.
Methods: SCOPUS, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched in April 2023 for peer-reviewed, English-language studies in high-income OECD countries containing a conceptual systems model or simulation model of socioeconomic inequalities in health or health behavior in the adult general population.
Social norm perceptions are implicit standards describing what is typically done or seen as acceptable and have shown to be important both in sustaining meat consumption as well as facilitating meat reduction. Norm perceptions depend on individual differences and the contexts (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To examine whether targeted determinants mediated the effects of the HEalth In Adolescents (HEIA) intervention on fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and explore if these mediating effects were moderated by sex, parental education or weight status.
Design: Cluster-randomised controlled trial.
Setting: The HEIA study (2007-2009) was a Norwegian 20-month multi-component school-based intervention to promote healthy weight development.
Salinization, the increase and accumulation of salts in water and soil, impacts productivity of arable crops and is exacerbated by climate change. The Netherlands, like several other deltas and semi-arid regions, faces increasing salinization that negatively impacts agriculture and freshwater availability. Although a lot of salinity expertise exist in the Netherlands, several knowledge gaps on the impact of salinization in the Netherlands, as well as steps to facilitate closing this knowledge gaps to improve saline agriculture in the Netherlands, still exist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate whether financial constraint and perceived stress modify the effects of food-related taxes on the healthiness of food purchases.
Design: Moderation analyses were conducted with data from a trial where participants were randomly exposed to: a control condition with regular food prices, an sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax condition with a two-tiered levy on the sugar content in SSB (5-8 g/100 ml: €0·21 per l and 8 g/100 ml: €0·28 per l) or a nutrient profiling tax condition where products with Nutri-Score D or E were taxed at a 20 percent level. Outcome measures were overall healthiness of food purchases (%), energy content (kcal) and SSB purchases (litres).
Background: Hospitals and long-term care facilities, which are key institutions to serve health and well-being, have an important exemplary role in providing supportive food environments to encourage healthy and sustainable food choices. The objective of this study is to characterize the physical, socio-cultural, political and economic dimensions of the food environment for health care receivers, health workforce and visitors in healthcare settings, and make comparisons between the food environment of hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Methods: To characterize the food environment in healthcare settings, two sub-studies were conducted.
Background: Laparoscopic incisional hernia repair is increasingly performed worldwide and expected to be superior to conventional open repair regarding hospital stay and quality of life (QoL). The INCisional Hernia-Trial was designed to test this hypothesis.
Methods: A multicenter parallel randomized controlled open-label trial with a superiority design was conducted in six hospitals in the Netherlands.
Introduction: The incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer is rising, thus the understanding of HPV infection and vaccination among oral healthcare professionals is becoming increasingly important. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge of Dutch dental hygiene students on HPV infection and vaccination and assessed various aspects of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study invited the entire Dutch dental hygiene student population registered in September 2016 to complete an online questionnaire concerning the knowledge of HPV infection and vaccination, including the aspects of HPV-related Oro-Pharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OPSCC).
The conventional enameling process used in the fabrication of magnet wires requires harmful processes and products. The target of the industry in the actual context of electrification is to increase the electrical machines' efficiency. Indeed, the electrical insulation systems (EIS) of an electrical machine undergo various environmental constraints that can shorten their lifespans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF