Addi van Bergen

About the author 225 About the author Addi van Bergen was born on April 7th 1958 in Wouw, the Netherlands. After graduating from secondary school (VWO) in 1976, she studied Mathematics at the Technical University Delft (BSc, 1982) and Human Nutrition at the Wageningen University (MSc, 1988). After working as associate researcher for the Wageningen University Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group in Senegal and nutrition coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Holland in Sudan, she returned to the Netherlands at the end of 1992. She worked for Dutch Interchurch Aid on the acquisition and organization of large scale emergency food aid and rehabilitation programs with local NGO’s and government agencies in the Horn of Africa and the funding and monitoring of small scale food security and nutrition improvement projects. In 2001 she made a career switch and commenced working as an epidemiologist at the GG&GD Utrecht (later Public Health Department of the municipality of Utrecht). In this position she carried out research on a wide variety of public health subjects ranging from ethnic health differences to school absenteeism and informal care support. In 2007 she became responsible for public mental health monitoring and research. She developed a new model for monitoring socially vulnerable persons and, with her team, set up a homeless monitor and monitor alcohol and drugs. When the Academic Collaborative Centre G4 USER was launched in 2010 she joined the PMH monitoring group led by prof. dr. Bert van Hemert and prof. dr. Judith Wolf. It was here that the idea arose to develop a validated measure for social exclusion, which ultimately resulted in this thesis. From 2016 to 2018 she carried out a number of studies for the GGD Amsterdam including an evaluation of experiments to increase the participation of citizens with a great distance to the labour market. Currently she works at the GGD Hollands Midden as public health researcher and coordinator of the Academic Collaborative Centre Public Health Northern part of South-Holland. Addi is living with her partner Gerard Agterberg, they have two sons, Miguel and Ole, an amazing daughter in law, Manon, and an always happy dog Belle.