RELAPSE AFTER WEIGHT LOSS Weight loss in people with overweight results in mental and physical health benefits. Unfortunately, most people who lose weight also regain weight. In this project we gained insight into what causes weight regain after weight loss and how we can prevent people to regain weight. We investigated this in both adults with overweight who lost weight independently or under the supervision of a professional, and in adults with extreme obesity who lost weight after bariatric surgery.

The aim of this study is to contribute to the health and wellbeing of hospital nursing staff in order to enhance their sustainable employability. Together with the involved healthcare organization, an intervention will be systematically developed, which is aimed at promoting behavioral change related to sustainable employability. The intervention consists of 1) the use of a validated questionnaire for recognizing and discussing possible stagnation in sustainable employability, 2) learning to use the associated guideline for the dialogue between nurse and supervisor, after completing the questionnaire and 3) suitable follow-up actions that can be used to intervene on potential stagnation in employability. By means of an intervention study (Randomized Controlled Trial) the effectiveness and applicability of this program will be investigated.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common neurological disorder among young adults (20-40 years), causing, next to physical symptoms, cognitive decline in up to 70% of the patients. These cognitive symptoms are highly debilitating and among the main reasons for unemployment and disconnection from society. Currently, cognitive rehabilitation and work coaching is only indicated when symptoms are present. However, once symptoms are present, extensive and mostly irreversible brain damage will limit the effects of interventions, i.e. intervening when symptoms are present and the societal consequences are tangible is too late. This means that early intervention is key to prevent future problems and to enable patients to live their life as they see fit. The aim of Don’t be late! is to induce a paradigm shift: from symptom management towards the prevention of symptoms. This requires 1) timely detection of subclinical cognitive deficits, 2) availability of preventative interventions and 3) collaboration between stakeholders to ensure implementation in clinical practice. All steps are incorporated in Don’t be late! In work package (WP) 1 a digital tool for timely detection of cognitive deficits is introduced. In WP2 novel preventative approaches “strengthening the brain” (exercise, lifestyle advice and cognitive training) and “strengthening the mind” (coaching at work) are expected to improve quality of life and prevent future cognitive decline and unemployment (WP2). In WP3, stakeholders, including patients, will evaluate (and adjust) research outcomes to foster proper implementation. Our goals fit perfectly with two game changers of the NWA route “Health care research, sickness prevention and treatment”: 1) introducing a new research paradigm that will enhance participation in society and 2) investing in sickness prevention by introducing two novel interventions. While extremely relevant to people with MS, Don’t be late! might also set the stage for other chronic diseases.

Contrary to the predominant approach in the epidemiology of ageing of investigating risk factors to identify people who have increased risks of negative health trajectories, this project will investigate the reasons for why some people who are supposed to be at risk for ill-health do not become ill. The aim of this project is: to identify which groups of older adults have aged successfully, despite having been exposed to exceptional socioeconomic adversity and to identify the mechanisms that explain their success. Exceptional socioeconomic adversity is the central risk exposure in this project because it is among the most fundamental causes of suffering currently known. It is measured with father?s and own education level in older indigenous Dutch adults and with being a first-generation Turkish or Moroccan migrant. The project investigates who among the groups that have been exposed to socioeconomic adversity has aged relatively successfully. Successful ageing shall be measured with core indicators of multiple domains of functioning: physical, mental, cognitive and social. The project departs from the following theses: 1) If one has attained relatively good physical, mental, cognitive and social functioning as compared to one?s age peers, one has aged successfully; 2) If one has aged successfully, despite having lived in socioeconomic hardship, one is resilient. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research methods, characteristics of resilient individuals shall be identified. Respondents are obtained from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA), which is primed to address a broad array of social, cognitive, mental and physical aspects of ageing. Two hypothesised mechanisms of resilience shall be considered: 1) resilient older adults have on average less accumulated risk throughout the lifecourse than the non-resilient older adults, and 2) specific protective factors in resilient older adults buffer against the consequences of living in socioeconomic hardship. The proposed study shall be performed by the applicant and two PhD students. It provides the applicant with the unique opportunity to merge his social scientific and epidemiological backgrounds into a unique scientific approach of the study of ageing.

The research project Cities of Readers: Religious Literacies in the Long Fifteenth Century aims to supply a new phase in the scholarly exploration of the later Middle Ages by studying the active participation of laypeople in the production and the transmission of religious knowledge through their engagement in reading, textual and performative activities. The project will innovatively approach religious readership in terms of dynamics, exchanges and negotiations and will consider individuals and groups (communities of interpretation, formal and informal textual communities sharing texts and knowledge) as objects of research. Reading activities will moreover be studied in relation to the specific places and spaces in which they were generated. The complexity of the topic and the broad varieties of selected sources (ranging from personal miscellanies to post-mortem inventories) require an interdisciplinary and programmatic approach that will be conducted along three main methodological lines: a) the study of the multiformity of readership and modes of transmission (textuality, orality, aurality and performativity); b) the role of communities of interpretation; c) a spatial approach to cultural dynamics striving towards the reconstruction of a late medieval religious taskscape, i.e. identifying the place where religious knowledge was made, discussed and exchanged. The research lines will be combined in three complementary research projects and in the final co-authored monograph that will contribute to the evaluation of material from the Low Countries in a wider European perspective. The project will result in the writing of new narratives concerning the crucial role of active readership during a pivotal period in European history.