Public Health

In the ACC Public Health Brabant Tranzo collaborates with the three Regional Public Health Services (GGD-en) in the province of Brabant, the National Institute on Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and Het PON & Telos, Research center on sustainability (Tisem/TiU).

WHO defines public health as “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts of society” (Acheson, 1988; WHO). Activities to strengthen public health capacities and service aim to provide conditions under which people can maintain to be healthy, improve their health and wellbeing, or prevent the deterioration of their health. Public health focuses on the entire spectrum of health and wellbeing, not only the eradication of particular diseases. Many activities are targeted at populations such as health campaigns. Public health services also include the provision of personal services to individual persons, such as vaccinations, behavioral counselling, or health advice.

Public health thus is a broad area. Our research projects focus on generating knowledge that supports evidence-informed local public health practice, both (local) health policy and (local) public health interventions. We carry out research in direct interaction with public health professionals, such as youth health care physicians, epidemiologists, health promoters and (local) policy makers. Among our research are many effect and evaluation studies (evaluating processes, results of innovative interventions and policy measures or interventions), pilot implementations, and health monitoring studies.

Topics that have been touched upon in the past years are for instance: how to tackle poverty and children’s health, how to foster use of epidemiological and other research results in local health policies, how to support municipalities to implement policy that stimulates physical activity among children and youth, mapping the vulnerability and resilience in neighbourhoods in cities and municipalities with exisiting data, developing effective implementation strategies for schools as smokefree zones, tackling absence through sick leave among schoolchildren.

Endowed chairs

1. Integrative Healthcare, established by the RIVM. Prof. Caroline Baan was appointed on this chair in 2014.
2. Public Health and Prevention, established by the three GGDs in Brabant (Hart voor Brabant, West-Brabant and Brabant-Zuidoost). Prof. Ien van de Goor was appointed on this chair in August 2022.

Prof. Hans van Oers was appointed to the endowed chair in Public Health since 2004. He retired in 2022 but remains associated with the ACC.