The Dutch Heart Foundation has awarded dr. Erik Timmermans, researcher at the UMC Utrecht, a Dekker grant. This is a prestigious personal research grant for talented scientists, awarded annually. With this grant of €498,000, he will spend the coming years researching cardiovascular disease.
Epidemiologist Erik Timmermans studies how we can make neighbourhoods more activity-friendly for older people– and in doing so, improve their heart health.
In the Netherlands, 60% of people over 65 are not active enough, even though regular physical activity supports heart health. Older people spend much of their time in their own neighbourhood. That makes a living environment that encourages movement especially important for them. Erik wants to find out: what exactly makes a neighbourhood activity-friendly for older people?
Dr. Erik Timmermans
Erik’s researchteam focuses on which facilities in a neighbourhood encourage older people to be active. For example, well-maintained sidewalks, benches, pedestrian crossings, public toilets, or local shops.
The activity-friendliness of a neighbourhood can be measured with a specific method. But the current method is not designed for older people. That’s why Erik will adapt this tool together with older people themselves. The goal: to be able to map, for every address, how activity-friendly a neighbourhood is for older people.
He will link the adapted tool to large datasets with information on the physical activity and heart health of thousands of older people. This will allow him to determine how changes in neighbourhoods affect activity levels and cardiovascular disease in older people.
The results will be incorporated into an online tool. In that way, older people, doctors, policymakers and urban designers can easily see how activity-friendly a neighbourhood is and which changes could make it better. The ultimate aim: to reduce the number of cardiovascular diseases.
The research will also look at differences between men and women, people with or without a migration background, and people with mobility limitations. This will help ensure that advice can be tailored to everyone’s situation.
Scientific research is essential to reduce deaths and health problems caused by cardiovascular diseases. Through its personal Dekker grants, the Dutch Heart Foundation connects toptalent to cardiovascular research. The selection process is strict, assessing both the quality of the researcher and the research proposal. The grants give researchers the opportunity to dedicate themselves to long-term research and to take the next step in their careers – developing and expanding their own research line.
The Dekker grant is named after dr. E. Dekker, former director of the Dutch Heart Foundation. He was the initiator in the Netherlands of community resuscitation efforts for cardiac arrest.
