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 of health and well-being in real-life settings. She has wide experience with complex public health promotion projects. The research is usually based on a mixed methods design, strong stakeholder participation including groups in a disadvantaged situation, and interdisciplinary approaches. To do so, she uses a whole systems approach and Participatory Action Research (PAR). In essence, this is research in which stakeholders, in particular citizens, are involved. Moreover, PAR emphasizes participation and action by stakeholders, centres on knowledge useful to people in everyday life and seeks to understand the world by trying to change it. 

Annemarie is project leader of the overarching evaluation research of the FNO program ‘Good Health and Opportunities for All’, that aims to improve the perceived health of families in a disadvantaged situation in multiple neighborhoods in several municipalities in the Netherlands. Annemarie is also involved as promotor and/or project leader in the ZonMw funded project 'Empowerment of pregnant women' and the Regio Deal Early Start program in collaboration with the Division Human Nutrition and Health (WUR). She is promotor of a PhD in the INREF SMART Agricultural project in collaboration with partners within WUR and Indonesia. She successfully completed projects like the ‘Effective elements in the integral approach of overweight and obesity', ‘Care–Sport Physical Activity Initiatives’, 'Why pregnant women eat what they eat’, 'Voorstad on the Move', 'Connecting Care, Sport and Physical Activity’, ‘Citizen Science for Public Health’ and 'Communities on the Move'.