Hilderink Hbm

• PhD
• National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

Burden of disease, expressed in disability-adjusted life years, is a very powerful metric to assess population health. It combines both mortality, i.e. years of life lost, and morbidity, i.e. years lost due to disability and is increasingly used within public health policy making. However, the substantial demand for (good quality) data, the involve...

Background Public health challenges are complex and analyzing them requires advanced approaches such as, societal cost-benefit analysis (SCBA), health impact assessment (HIA), and strategic foresight. Analyzing health policy is a multifaceted process, and depends on, among others, the scope, approach, and policy goals. Given this complex and multif...

The Dutch government provides several population screening programmes intended for early detection of diseases so that prompt treatment can be provided. These include population screenings for various forms of cancer and screenings for specific diseases in unborn and newborn children. The future provision of these screenings is influenced by variou...

Every 4 years, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) carries out the Dutch Public Health Foresight Study, commissioned by the Ministry of Health. The ninth edition (PHFS-2024) compiles an outlook on future public health and the health care system in the Netherlands. It combines a business-as-usual Trend Scenario with l...

Background The application of foresight to the field of public health is limited. There is growing need to anticipate uncertain future trends and to plan for them. Foresight provides tools to experts and policymakers to discuss and plan for possible futures. Hence, the aim of this study is to illustrate how the foresight six-step approach can be ap...

Background Research on smoking as a risk factor for death due to COVID-19 remains inconclusive, with different studies demonstrating either an increased or decreased risk of COVID-19 death among smokers. To investigate this controversy, this study uses data from the Netherlands to assess the relationship between smoking and death due to COVID-19....

Background Similar to many countries, Belgium experienced a rapid increase in cancer diagnoses in the last years. Considering that a large part of cancer types could be prevented, our study aimed to estimate the annual healthcare burden of cancer per site, and to compare cost with burden of disease estimates to have a better understanding of the i...

The Dutch Public Health Foresight Study (PHFS) provides insight into the most important societal challenges for public health and health care in the Netherlands. An important element of this study are the Burden of Disease indicators, among which the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY). In the last editions of the PHFS future DALYs are also includ...

Background Foresight studies in the field of public health are limited. However, in the context of increasing uncertainty and complexity, such as with the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing need to anticipate future trends and to plan for them. Foresight provides the tools to explore possible futures and develop policy strategies. Despite its valu...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic showed that we were not prepared for unexpected and uncertain events. Foresight provides a process that explores the future to anticipate such events and be better prepared. However, in public health, foresight is underdeveloped and underused. It is necessary that policy makers and stakeholders realize the potential...

Background Ageing populations have major impact on public health leading to more pressure on formal as well as informal health care. With rising health care expenditures, a sharp rise in geriatric diseases, multimorbidity, and a decrease in the available resources to manage complex health problems, it is of utmost importance to explore the impact o...

Background Similar to many countries, Belgium experienced a rapid increase of cancer diagnoses in the last years. Considering that a large part of cancer types could be prevented, our study aimed to estimate the annual healthcare burden of cancer per site, and to compare cost with burden of disease estimates to have a better understanding of the im...

Background Burden of disease analyses quantify population health and provide comprehensive overviews of the health status of countries or specific population groups. The comparative risk assessment (CRA) methodology is commonly used to estimate the share of the burden attributable to risk factors. The aim of this paper is to identify and address so...

Background The Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a frequently used metric to assess burden of disease (BoD). Many independent BoD studies have been performed across Europe, showing wide variations and inconsistencies in the application and reporting of DALY specific methods. The European Burden of Disease Network (burden-eu) aims to develop g...

Background People with diabetes live shorter lives on average than people without diabetes. This is not only because they have diabetes, but also more often other chronic diseases. This causes a greater risk of death. It makes a difference what kind of diabetes someone has. In type 1 diabetes, the natural immune system does not work properly. In ty...

Background A better understanding of possible future developments is essential for policy makers to anticipate and influence these trends. Public health foresight studies (PHFS) are tools to support this. The current health crisis makes clear that PHFS are necessary more than ever to target possible future impacts resulting from SARS-COV-2 induced...

This presentation starts with an interactive mentimeter poll to involve the audience. They will be asked several questions about what they find important in dealing with uncertainty in public health foresight studies. Background The future is per definition uncertain. Our knowledge about the future is obviously limited, especially when we look fur...

Background People value health differently, based on the norms and values. This is important when looking into the future trends in health and health care., and the perception of challenges they may arise from these trends. Methods Together with stakeholders from a broad range of health-related professions, we identified several challenges for pub...

Background: In many Western countries, the state pension age is being raised to stimulate the extension of working lives. It is not yet well understood whether the health of older adults supports this increase. In this study, future health of Dutch adults aged 60 to 68 (i.e., the expected state pension age) is explored up to 2040. Methods: Data...

A growing number of informal caregivers of older adults combine caregiving with a paid job, raising the question of whether they will be able to meet the increasing demand for informal care. The aims of our study are twofold: first, to describe the development of a model providing insight into the factors that play a role in the availability and pr...

Background The future consequences of the corona pandemic for health are significant but uncertain. The Dutch Public health Foresight Study-2020 (PHFS-2020) analyses future trends in health status, determinants, prevention and care, in the light of COVID-19. The pandemic impacts health directly through COVID-19 and indirectly through changes in lif...

The Netherlands National Institute for Public health and the Environment published for more than 25 years their National Burden of Disease estimates (Dutch DALYs). This is done as part of their Public health Status and Foresight study which is commissioned by the Ministry of Health. In these 25 years, the translation of knowledge resulting from the...

The concept of Knowledge Translation (KT) can be used to narrow the gap between knowledge producers, such as researchers, and knowledge users, such as policy makers. KT is the process in which complex research and data are translated into more easily to understand understood content to support evidence-informed policy making. KT covers a wide varie...

Background A better understanding of possible future developments is essential for policy makers to anticipate and influence these trends. Public health foresight studies (PHFS) are tools to support this. The current health crisis makes clear that PHFS are necessary more than ever to target possible future impacts resulting from SARS-COV-2 induced...

When the sense of urgency of the COVID pandemic increased, in March 2020, the Dutch Ministry of Health commissioned RIVM to do the study “Public Health Foresight, in the light of COVID-19”. The aim of this study was to analyze Impact of the corona pandemic on current and future health and health care, to support broader consideration of measures an...

The importance to bridge the gap between research and policy making has been widely recognised. Also, in the field of Burden of Disease, this gap exists. There are various terms used to define the dynamic process of synthesising, exchanging and applying generated knowledge into policy making. These are among other interchangeably used terms: knowle...

Background The InfAct (Information for Action) project is a European Commission Joint Action on Health Information which has promoted the potential role of burden of disease (BoD) approaches to improve the current European Union-Health Information System (EU-HIS). It has done so by raising awareness of the concept, the methods used to calculate est...

Recent estimates have reiterated that non-fatal causes of disease, such as low back pain, headaches and depressive disorders, are amongst the leading causes of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). For these causes, the contribution of years lived with disability (YLD) - put simply, ill-health - is what drives DALYs, not mortality. Being able to...

Background: The InfAct (Information for Action) project is a European Commission Joint Action on Health Information which has promoted the potential role of burden of disease (BoD) approaches to improve the current European-Health Information System (EU-HIS). It has done so by raising awareness of the concept, the methods used to calculate estimate...

Health initiatives are increasingly situated outside the institutionalised public health sector. The intersectoral character of societal initiatives, along with indirect relationships between initiatives and health, makes making projections of reach, impact and goal achievement complex. This scoping review of the peer-reviewed literature searches f...

Background Summary measures of population health are increasingly used in different public health reporting systems for setting priorities for health care and social service delivery and planning. Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) are one of the most commonly used health gap summary measures in the field of public health and have become the ke...

Calls for evidence-informed public health policy-making often ignore that there are multiple, and often competing,bodies of potentially relevant evidence to which policy-makers have recourse in identifying policy priorities and taking decisions. In this paper, we illustrate how policy frames may favour the use of specific bodies of evidence.For the...

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) holds the whole world in its grasp. The consequences have been huge – not only for health, but also for the economy and our daily lives. Insight into the course of the crisis and its consequences is still limited. This is especially true in relation to different groups of people in a vulnerable position. With this...

Background: The Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a measure to prioritize in the public health field. In the Netherlands, the DALY estimates are calculated since 1997 and are included in the Public Health Status and Foresight studies which is an input for public health priority setting and policy making. Over these 20 years, methodological a...

A key goal of most Burden of Disease (BoD) studies is to support public health policies. However, while the concepts of BoD and Disability Adjusted Life years have been introduced more than 25 years, BoD researchers are still struggling to find better ways to translate their findings and communicate them to the relevant decision makers and other st...

Objectives In many Western societies, the state pension age is being raised to stimulate prolonged working. In the Netherlands, the raise of the state pension age is linked to the remaining life expectancy at age 65 with a factor of 2/3rd, and is expected to be 68 years in 2040. It is not yet well understood whether health of the 60+ permits this i...

The four-year Public Health Foresight Study (VTV) provides insight into the most important societal challenges for public health and health care in the Netherlands. The seventh edition of the Dutch Public Health Foresight study was published in 2018, with an update in 2020. In this update a business-as-usual or Trend Scenario was developed using 20...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

One thing that the Corona virus outbreak has shown is that we hardly had a clue what a global pandemic would be like and how it could affect daily life. How the future of this pandemic will look like is highly uncertain. Dealing with uncertainty is one of key elements of foresight methodology. This methodology addresses uncertainty which is unmista...

Background: Evidence has emerged showing that elderly people and those with pre-existing chronic health conditions may be at higher risk of developing severe health consequences from COVID-19. In Europe, this is of particular relevance with ageing populations living with non-communicable diseases, multi-morbidity and frailty. Published estimates o...

Background: Evidence has emerged showing that elderly people and those with pre-existing chronic health conditions may be at higher risk of developing severe health consequences from COVID-19. In Europe, this is of particular relevance with ageing populations living with non-communicable diseases, multi-morbidity and frailty. Published estimates of...

Observed multiple adverse effects of livestock production have led to increasing calls for more sustainable livestock production. Quantitative analysis of adverse effects, which can guide public debate and policy development in this area, is limited and generally scattered across environmental, human health, and other science domains. The aim of th...

Background Promoting health rather than treating disease is gaining popularity and promotion initiatives are increasingly situated in the societal domain. In this scoping review, the literature on quantitative health impact assessment (HIA) practice and methodology is explored in order to provide an overview of methods that have been used or propos...

Background RIVM-National Institute for Public Health and the Environment published as part of the 2018 Dutch Public Health Foresight report, an update of the Disease Burden, including the Environmental Burden of disease. This report is not only relevant for the Ministry of Health but also for other policy arenas, to support policy making with the o...

Background The burden of disease (BoD) methods are not part of routine public health activities and policy development process across all Member States (MSs). The main reasons for this are varying levels of knowledge, experience, and capability to apply and use BoD methods. Therefore, MSs need support, guidance and training to adopt and integrate B...

Background: The use of foresight studies is common in some policy fields, but not in public health. Interest in such studies is growing. This paper gives a general overview of the Dutch Public Health Foresight Study (PHFS) 2018, providing insight into what performing a broad scenario exercise in the field of public health entails and its societal...

Purpose: To explore the combined effect of trends in older people on their future healthcare utilisation. Methods: A Delphi study consisting of two rounds was conducted. The heterogeneous expert panel (n = 16) in the field of elderly care rated the effect of combinations of trends in the Netherlands on the use of seven healthcare services: i.e....

An estimated 26% of current global child deaths can be attributed to various and modifiable environmental factors , which are addressed under multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study assesses future reductions in child mortality in relation to the achievement of environment-related SDG targets. It uses projections of health risk fa...

Monitoring and assessment of population health often start with a conceptual framework or model. Although such frameworks may appear rather abstract and far away from everyday problems, they can be applied usefully in population health monitoring. This chapter will first address the potential use of frameworks and models: what are the differences b...

The processes of indicator selection and data collection have been explained in the previous chapters. The next step in climbing the information pyramid is the analysis phase. This includes the calculation of indicator values (moving from data to information) and, subsequently, placing these indicators into a context in order to make them meaningfu...

Policy-oriented foresight reports aim to inform and advise decision-makers. In value-laden areas such as public health and healthcare, deliberative scenario methods are clearly needed. For the sixth Dutch Public Health Status and Forecasts-report (PHSF-2014), a new approach of co-creation was developed aiming to incorporate different societal norms...

Background: One quarter of the global disease burden could be avoided with management strategies for environmental risk factors such as air and water pollution, food contamination, injuries and poor road safety. Many decisions influencing health are made outside the health sector; thus, the joint consideration and implementation of health and envi...

Background Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) quantify the loss of healthy years of life due to dying prematurely and due to living with diseases and injuries. Current methods of attributing DALYs to underlying risk factors fall short on two main points. First, risk factor attribution methods often unjustly apply incidence-based population attr...

Background Various Burden of Disease (BoD) studies do not account for multimorbidity in their BoD estimates. Ignoring multimorbidity can lead to inaccuracies in BoD estimations, particularly in ageing populations that include large proportions of persons with two or more health conditions. The objective of this study is to improve BoD estimates for...

Background: Improving survival and extending the longevity of life for all populations requires timely, robust evidence on local mortality levels and trends. The Global Burden of Disease 2015 Study (GBD 2015) provides a comprehensive assessment of all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 249 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2...

Supplementary appendix.

p>Background: Various Burden of Disease (BoD) studies do not account for multimorbidity in their BoD estimates. Ignoring multimorbidity can lead to inaccuracies in BoD estimations, particularly in ageing populations that include large proportions of persons with two or more health conditions. The objective of this study is to improve BoD estimates...

Environmental change is an acknowledged factor influencing human migration. Analytical research regarding the relationship between the environment and human migration has increased in recent years yet still faces numerous hurdles, partly due to limited availability of suitable data. We review available data and methodologies for investigating the e...

This summary of key findings has been extracted from the Dutch publication Een Gezonder Nederland: De Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenning 2014, our sixth exploratory study on the future of public health in the Netherlands. The study focuses on four societal challenges in the field of public health: • To keep people healthy as long as possible and...

Hoe zullen de volksgezondheid en zorg zich in Nederland tot 2030 ontwikkelen als er veel meer ouderen komen? We putten daarvoor uit de nieuwste Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenningen van het RIVM (VTV-2014). Voor deze VTV is een trendscenario ontwikkeld waarin – op basis van simulatiemodellen – bestaande trends worden doorgetrokken naar 2030 zonder...

The Dutch Public Health Status and Foresight report 2014 explores the future of public health in the Netherlands, using a trend scenario and four future scenarios. The trend scenario provides projections until 2030, based on the trends over the last decades and assuming the policy stays the same. After many years the unfavourable trends in lifestyl...

We present an innovative global-to-local modeling approach to analyze impacts of uncertain and complex futures on Vietnam’s economy via changes in land use patterns. Socio-economic changes are shown to have major implications for the Vietnamese landscape, including natural forest losses with negative consequences for biodiversity and greenhouse gas...

Context of application The recurrence of specific processes that shape farmers’ vulnerability to environmental and socio-economic perturbations in various regions has inspired research on archetypical patterns of vulnerability. This presentation assesses patterns of vulnerability to climate variability, market impacts and demographic perturbations...

In dit rapport analyseert het PBL de effecten van de landbouw op de leefomgeving, evenals, in bredere zin, de voortgang van de verduurzaming van het voedselsysteem. We evalueren bovendien de effectiviteit van het Nederlandse overheidsbeleid als het erom gaat die effecten te verminderen. We beschrijven de belangrijkste ontwikkelingen op dit gebied i...

We present an innovative global-to-local modeling approach to analyze impacts of uncertain and complex futures on Viet-nam's economy via changes in land use patterns. Socioeconomic changes are shown to have major implications for the Vietnamese landscape , including natural forest losses with negative consequences for biodiversity and greenhouse ga...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aim to improve basic quality of life, and are leading on the agenda for international policy on development and sustainable poverty reduction. Health has a prominent position though the strong interrelation between the health-related MDGS and the other, such as hunger, poverty and environment calls for an int...

ealth can be considered as one of the most important constituents of quality of life. To explore how future health will evolve the health module of the Population& health model PHOENIX has been developed. The main purpose is to describe future health status using of the concept of the health transition, given changes in socio-economic and environme...

Recent scientific reports have shown that we are living in an era in which human activities are having a negative influence on the earth system on an unprecedented scale. The provision of ecosystem services, such as food production, clean air and water or a stable climate, is under severe and growing pres - sure. The rate of global environmental ch...

RIVM-MNP 3 EUR – iBMG / iMTA In consultation with WHO. Aim and scope of the study. The objective of this report is to provide a preliminary assessment (quick-scan) of costs of water and sanitation services (WSS) in relation to population health, and to identify possible options to reduce the water-related burden of disease in a more cost-effective...

Cost reductions must be made in water supply and sanitation provision in order to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals. As ‘willingness to pay’ for sanitation and wastewater treatment is much lower than for the provision of drinking water, and the unit cost is usually higher, full coverage will only be achie ved if we manage to devel...

The millennium Development Goals aim to have the number of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015, but cost-effective approaches are needed if these aims are to be met. Improvement of water supply, sanitation and hygiene is likely to have most effect on reduction of faecal oral disease and in doing so reduce the health...

Health benefits, water supply, sanitation

Public on: 1994-12-31. RIVM Report 461502008. 56 pages | English | 1994 In this report we address human fertility and its evolution over time in relation to socio-economic development. Human fertility is a biological process that is governed by social, economic, cultural and environmental variables. The effects for these on fertility levels are med...

This report describes an operationalisation of the term 'sustainable development', by introducing the vulnerability concept. Vulnerability describes the degree to which a system is likely to experience harm due to exposure to a hazard, and thereby identifies unsustainable states and processes. The operationalisation is presented in a framework, whi...