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Dr. Coosje Dijkstra is an assistant professor at the Amsterdam UMC, department Public and Occupational Health and the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute. Coosje is trained as a dietitian, nutritionist and epidemiologist. She obtained her Master’s degree from Wageningen University.
Coosje her core interest lies within the design, implementation and evaluation of (participatory) system dynamic approaches to help to address non communicable diseases (with a specific focus on overweight and obesity) and socioeconomic health inequalities. She collaborates extensively with both local and national policymakers to guarantee that the research being conducted, along with its outcomes, can be effectively integrated into decision-making procedures into practice.
Coosje is involved in different large scale system dynamics studies including LIKE, Food4Smiles and Eten op school. Her current research is predominantly focused on the transition from systems thinking theories into actual implementation of these theories in practice.
Coosje is supervisor of several PhD students and is involved in teaching courses, among other places, at the department of Health Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is also a member of different boards and advisory committees, as for example board member of the Dutch Academy of Nutrition Science, and member of the Amsterdam Young Academy.
Expertise: Public Health Nutrition, Food Environments, Food Policies, Socioeconomic Inequalities, Systems Thinking, Participatory System Dynamics, Mixed Methods