Karen Nieuwenhuijsen PhD

Dr. Karen Nieuwenhuijsen’s research focuses on the consequences for work of mental health problems, including depression and stress. More specifically, she is interested in what we can do to prevent presenteeism, absenteeism, and long-term disability.

She is a Principal Investigator at the Coronel Institute of Occupational Health and a senior researcher at the Dutch Research Center for Insurance Medicine, both located at the Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her work includes the development and evaluation of instruments that can help detect problems and instruments that can be used to evaluate prevention efforts at the workplace.

Next to her scientific contributions in this field, Dr. Nieuwenhuijsen collaborates on developing professional guidelines, mainly for occupational physicians and social insurance physicians. In her role as Principal Educator at the Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, she also works on protecting the mental health of medical students. She is a member of the editorial board of the Cochrane Collaboration ‘Work’ group. In 2016, she hosted the international conference of the ICOH ‘Work Disability Prevention and Integration’ (WDPI) and has been a member of the WDPI Executive Committee ever since.