Research line

Prevention and empowerment

Our goal is to increase the accessibility, effectiveness and feasibility of prevention in care and well-being. We do this by focusing on working methodologies and tools to address the gaps in the current care and well-being landscape.

Within the prevention and empowerment research line, we accomplish the above by conducting practice-oriented scientific research together with practitioners, care recipients and other stakeholders. This approach means that the results of our research can generally be used immediately in practice.

We investigate current gaps and problems in the preventative healthcare landscape.
We conduct scientific research on solutions and develop tools/processes for both caregivers, the population or both, to:

Increase health literacy of the population.
Increase accessibility of preventive services to target populations with vulnerabilities.
Support and improve provider-patient communication.
Develop methods to better engage vulnerable populations in research.

Our team

Research line coordinator

Wessel van de Veerdonk

For his PhD, Wessel van de Veerdonk - epidemiologist (Msc) and nurse (Bsc) - focused on the Flemish Population Screening for Colorectal Cancer. Today, he is a researcher and coordinator of the Prevention and Empowerment research group.

Researcher

Isabelle Cuykx

Isabelle (communication sciences - Msc) has been a researcher at Thomas More since September 2023. She participates in the project "Immersive Technology in Healthcare Training" and focused on food and media for her PhD.

Researcher

Annelies De Bruyne

Annelies De Bruyne is a lecturer-researcher in the People and Well-being research group. She works at the interface between formal and informal care (informal care). From research, she wants to help build the practice of socialising care.

Researcher

Remko De Duytsche

Remko De Duytsche, a nursing lecturer, seamlessly blends teaching with a research role since 2023. Contributing to the 'Immersive Technology in Healthcare Training' project, he passionately believes in innovation in both healthcare and education.

Researcher

Ann De Mey

Ann De Mey (MScN) has been working as a researcher in the People and Well-being research group since 2023. From her expertise in health care, she is involved in the research project 'Samen aan Z'.

Researcher

Wendy de Vaal

Wendy de Vaal has been a researcher in the People and Well-being research group since 2023. Based on her expertise in healthcare, she participates in the research project 'Samen aan Z Interreg Vlaanderen-Nederland'.

Researcher

Wendy D'haenens

Wendy D'haenens (PhD) has been a lecturer-researcher in the People and Well-being research group since 2016. She is an expert in subjective and objective evaluation of hearing, (classroom) acoustics and ICF (WHO) applications within speech therapy

Researcher

Liesbet Van Bos

Liesbet Van Bos has been a researcher at the Expertise Centre Care and Well-being since September 2022. Her focus is currently on co-creative research.

Researcher

Marlon van Loo

Marlon van Loo has been a researcher in the People and Well-being Research Group since September 2022.

Researcher

Lieve Van Nieuwenhuysen

Lieve Van Nieuwenhuysen has been a lecturer-researcher in the People and Well-being Research Group since 2009.

Researcher

Peter Vervoort

Peter Vervoort is a researcher in the People and Well-being research group. From his expertise in healthcare and as a member of the XR steering committee at Thomas More, he is collaborating on the project Immersive Technology in Healthcare Training.