Programma
Addressing lifestyle in preventive and curative care
The largest and fastest growing health and economic burden in the realm of health comes from diseases primarily linked to unhealthy lifestyles
While this is best combated through prevention, revenue models and validated interventions are still scarce. But lifestyle can also play an important role in a curative sense, either as a treatment itself or in support of other treatments.
This program first focused on the curative side of lifestyle-related diseases. We have a few reasons for this. We believe that in this way we can contribute to a health care system that focuses on positive health instead of (only) fighting diseases. We also have the impression that curative care has more research capacity, urgency for validation, infrastructure and funding available to learn lessons concerning behavior change and health for preventive programs
The lessons learned in projects with our partners are then applied in different environments where much can be achieved in terms of prevention: school, work and neighborhoods.
The third topic in this program is the so-called "first 1,000 days;" the phase from conception through the first two years of life. There is plenty of research available showing that this period is particularly important in determining long-term health.
With a systemic approach, this program develops projects in conjunction with virtually all leading initiatives. In doing so, we focus on lifestyle-related diseases such as kidney and cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Moreover, we work on developing the preconditions needed for a market to emerge: product development, validation and measurement, consumer knowledge, social innovation within the healthcare system, benchmarking, use of (big) data and network development.
The goal is to work together with all the stakeholders to influence the framework so that lifestyle becomes a common part of both health and disease control and products and services are developed in a functioning market. The underlying goal, of course, is to increase the number of healthy years of life in the Netherlands at a lower cost per person.
