Epidemiology

BIOGRAPHY

Assistant Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Departments of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Erasmus Medical Center since 2003. Visiting fellow at the Child Psychiatry Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, 2005. Ph.D. in Epidemiology, 2003, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Dutch National Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht 1997-1999; M.D. 1995, University of Bonn; M.A. in Sociology, 1995, University of Bonn. Research interests: Risk factors for common mental disorders in the elderly with a particular focus on late life depression, among the determinants investigated are vascular, nutritional, inflammatory and metabolic factors; physical consequences of psychiatric disorders in the elderly; etiology of developmental disorders, current projects include the application of postnatal brain ultrasound, salivary cortisol sampling, observation of attachment styles, and psychomotor assessment in very young children. Most studies are conducted either in the prospective, population-based Rotterdam Study or Generation R, a birth cohort study from fetal to adult life.