Marijn de Bruin appointed professor of Behavioural medicine & Health psychology

As of 1 March 2021, behavioural scientist Marijn de Bruin is appointed Professor of 'Behavioural medicine & Health psychology' at Radboud University/Radboud university medical center. His research focuses on health behaviour in public and curative care.

Marijn de Bruin studies interventions to support healthy behaviour. Health behaviours such as smoking, physical activity or medication use have a major impact on our life expectancy and health care costs. Marijn de Bruin's research focuses on increasing the usefulness and impact of behavioural knowledge. First, he designs and evaluates interventions to support healthy behaviour, often for patients with long-term conditions such as HIV, hepatitis C or heart failure.

The second part of his scientific research focuses on improving research methods so that we can learn more from research already done and make future research better and more relevant. Thirdly, he wants to investigate how evidence about (cost-) effective behavioural interventions can be translated more effectively into policy and practice. Combined, this research programme should have a positive effect on both science and society.

Research during the corona crisis

Since March 2020, Marijn de Bruin mainly focusses on research on the behaviour of society during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is co-founder of the RIVM Corona Behavioural Unit, within which he is a member of the core team and head of scientific research. He has been working for this unit for over a year. He regularly consults with various ministries and speaks in the media about our behaviour. The behavioural science research into the perceptions, behaviour and welfare of citizens during the coronal pandemic was financed by ZonMw, NWO and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.

Health scientist in Maastricht and Aberdeen

Marijn de Bruin (1977, Amsterdam) studied health sciences at Maastricht University. In 2009 he received his PhD, also from Maastricht, for research on medication use among HIV patients (title of thesis: 'Theory- and evidence-based interventions to enhance adherence among HIV-infected patients using highly active antiretroviral therapy'). He worked for five years as a university lecturer at Wageningen University and Research and the University of Amsterdam. In 2013, he became Professor and Head of Health Psychology at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland). From 2018-2020, he combined this position with a role as senior researcher at IQ Healthcare of Radboud university medical center, where he had received a Hypatia Fellowship intended to attract external research leaders.

• Want to know more about these subjects? Click on the buttons below for more news.

  News homepage news & media