HEALS
HEALTHY EARLY LIFE START

Chronic stress in the first 1000 days of life, roughly between conception and the second birthday, can have detrimental and lifelong effects on mental and physical health of the child. However, many children suffering from chronic stress still remain undetected. The Healthy Early Life Start (HEALS) project is an interdisciplinary research project that focusses on developing better ways to detect stress in early life and on offering the right support to families. The HEALS project is a large, NWA funded project in collaboration with multiple academic hospitals, universities, health centers, midwife practices, companies and other organizations. 

The DPB lab contributes to the HEALS project by focusing on the mechanisms of how potential stressful factors can lead to mental and physical health outcomes. We aim to further untangle the relation between stressors, risk factors and protective factors in the first 1000 days, and neurodevelopmental and cardiometabolic health later in life. We will carry out two systematic reviews and use previously collected data from three large population-based cohorts in the Netherlands (Amsterdam Born Children and their Development, Generation R, and Lifelines NEXT). Based on these findings we will create the basis of a detection tool that can be used in the Dutch healthcare system to detect which children are at risk of chronic stress and would benefit from additional support. Finally, to support policy decisions on implementation we will use microsimulation models to assess the potential health benefits at individual and population level of using detection tools combined with personalized interventions. 

The following people from our lab are working in this study: Esmee Breddels, Desi Burghoorn (UMCG, external), Carolina de Weerth.