She works as a senior researcher at Nivel since 1998 and is project leader of the National Panel of people with Chronic Illness or Disability (2008-present) and the National Panel of people with Lung Diseases (2001 – present); she is an expert in the area of (determinants of) self-management, diversity and chronic illness and has extensive research experience in the area of psychosocial factors and their interaction with health behavior and health, including illness perceptions, patient activation, self-efficacy, social support and health literacy. Recently she started research on gender differences in treatment burden among chronic disease patients. Since 1998 she was involved in more than 50 research projects related to chronic disease, diversity, self-management, health literacy, social participation, multi-morbidity and person-centred care in the Netherlands. She is the (co-)author of over 70 international publications and over 100 Dutch articles and reports.