prof.dr.ir. MAE (Annemarie) Wagemakers

Annemarie Wagemakers is Personal Professor Participatory Community Health Promotion at the Group Health and Society. Her research focuses on the combined influence of lifestyle and the social and physical environment on health and well-being in real-life settings. She has extensive experience in complex public health promotion projects. The research is typically based on a mixed methods design, strong stakeholder involvement, including groups in a disadvantaged situation, and interdisciplinary approaches. She uses a whole systems approach and participatory action research (PAR). In essence, this is research that involves stakeholders, especially citizens. In addition, PAR emphasises stakeholder participation and action, focuses on knowledge that is useful to people in their everyday lives, and seeks to understand the world by trying to change it.

Her research topics include: Citizen participation in multi-sectoral collaborative structures; empowerment strategies to improve diet quality among pregnant women and parents; citizen science for pandemic preparedness; promoting social equity through sport and physical activity; integrative health systems for the management of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Suriname; social networks; participatory research with adolescents; stigma towards bariatric surgery; stigma and menstruation; food security in Uganda.

Annemarie is the coordinator of the BSc course ‘Health Policy and Action’ and teaches the BSc course ‘Introduction to Health and Society’ and the PhD course ‘Advanced Qualitative Research Design & Data Collection’.