Heike Garritsen is a PhD student at the Department of Public and Occupational Health at Amsterdam UMC. In 2016 she completed her master's degree in Health Promotion at Utrecht University and since 2018 she is working on a PhD project focused on smoke-free policies at sports clubs. Despite still having one year to go before she finishes her PhD, she has already managed to publish five chapters, and another two articles under review.
Heike also incorporated the results of her initial research into a fact sheet for sports clubs with motivating tips on how to become smoke-free and also gave presentations for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and various representatives of municipalities and sports clubs (e.g. Association of Dutch Municipalities, Association of Sports & Municipalities, some GGDs, NOC*NSF, KNVB). Furthermore, the research results were also used for a national campaign of the NOC*NSF and in a roadmap for clubs to become smoke-free of the Heart Foundation, Lung Fund and KWF.
The jury was very impressed by the scientific and social achievements of this young researcher who has not even finished her PhD yet!
Read more about the National Tobacco Control Research Award on the NNvT website [DUTCH]