KM (Kristina) Thompson

I am a health demographer, and am an assistant professor in the Health & Society group of Wageningen University & Research. I quantitatively examine the social determinants of health. More specifically, I study how social and economic factors across people's lifetimes may impact health and mortality. My work increasingly employs complexity science approaches and computational modeling, and involves a mix of contemporary and historical settings. 

My primary research interest lies in understanding socio-economic inequities in mortality. In 2025, my Veni project, "Understanding widening socio-economic inequities in health in the Netherlands: A mixed methods approach," was funded by NWO (SSH Domain). Between 2026 and 2029, I will identify the various mechanisms explaining wider socio-economic inequities in health in the Netherlands, and will test them in a microsimulation model. 

I am also interested in social networks, and how they affect health, and might be leveraged in interventions to improve health. I explore this in projects including 'A Whole-of-Society Approach to Health System Resiliency and Pandemic Preparedness in Indonesia,' and 'The Amsterdam Social Network Interventions for Health Simulator (ASNIHS): Building the evidence base to improve the resiliency and health of Amsterdam residents.'

I previously studied at Tufts University (BA), Cambridge University (M.Phil), and Wageningen University (M.Sc.). I completed my Ph.D. at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in February 2022, in the Health Sciences department. My thesis focused on body height - as a barometer of well-being during development - and its relationships to later-life social, economic and health outcomes.