Personal information
Olga Damman studied Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating she started working at NIVEL (Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research) in Utrecht in 2006. Her research topics at NIVEL were quality of care from the patient’s perspective, public reporting, and informed decision making in health care. She finished her PhD thesis (titled: "Public reporting about health care users' experiences: the Consumer Quality Index") at Tilburg University in 2010. Her PhD thesis focused on how consumers process and use comparative health care quality information and how this depends on the way it is presented.
In her current position at the EMGO+ Institute, Olga Damman studies patient /consumer decision making in health care; se is involved in research on health risk communication, patient participation in treatment decision making, and comparative health care quality information. Her main study is "Improving health risk communication for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and kidney disease by taking into account people's prior beliefs and cognitive abilities; a mental model approach" (grant from LekkerLangLeven, 2010). In this study, it is investigated how lay people understand health risks and how risk information in health checks promotes this understanding and their motivation for behavioral change.