Personal information
Education
Karen van Leeuwen graduated (cum laude) in 2010 from the research Master's programme in Lifestyle and Chronic Disorders at the VU University in Amsterdam. She completed two scientific internships during her masters program; ‘the usage and acceptability of an interactive IVF web portal (madonnamedisch.nl)' at the department of obstetrics and gynaecology of the VU University Medical Center and 'needs and barriers for the prevention of Gestational Diabetes among women at risk for developing GDM' at the department of public and occupational health of the EMGO institute. During her Master's programma she was a member of the symposium committee of the first “Lifestyle and Chronic Disorders research symposium” (2010). Before the LCD Master, Karen graduated (cum laude) from the Master's programma in Communication Science at the University of Twente in Enschede, where she specialised in (public) health communication.
PhD
In August 2010, Karen started working as a PhD-student at the department of General Practice. Her dissertation will focus on the cost-effectiveness of integrated care for community-dwelling older adults. The main project in which Karen is involved is ACT (NPO transitieproject De Oudere Centraal in Samenhangende Zorg), which evaluates the implementation of the Geriatric Care Model within a stepped wedge clustered randomized clinical trial. Karen performs the economic evaluation of the Geriatric Care Model. Furthermore, she will write a systematic review on economic evaluations of integrated care for community-dwelling older adults and started a project on the identification of a wellbeing measure for economic evaluations of integrated care programmes for older adults.
Karen continued her education during her PhD programme and completed the following courses and workshops:
- Quality of Life (Centre for Health Economics, University of York)
- Survival Analysis (Netherlands Institute for Health Science, Rotterdam)
- Introduction to R (EpidM, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam)
- Planned in October: WinBUGS in Health Economic Evaluations (MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge)
- Planned in October: Qualitative Data Analysis (Radboud University Nijmegen)
- Classes within medical Master Programme Vitality and Ageing: Multimorbidity & Geriatric Giants, Healthy Ageing & Vitality, Structure & Financing of Health Care, Governance (Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing)