Nathalie Mendez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health Economics and Epidemiology at the Julius Center, UMC Utrecht, supervised by Ilonca Vaartjes, Erik Timmermans, and Danielle Vienneau. With a background in Nutritional and Public Health Epidemiology, her research focuses on integrating the exposome into the risk–trigger–vulnerability framework of coronary heart disease, and in identifying population groups that may be particularly vulnerable to these exposures.
Through her research, Nathalie aims to better understand the role of environmental exposures in cardiovascular health. She also seeks to identify factors that may contribute to increased vulnerability among specific populations.
I hope to raise awareness of how our environment influences cardiovascular health and I hope to better understand who may be most vulnerable.
Image: Thijs Rooimans
The environment we live in has a dominant impact on our health. It explains an estimated seventy percent of the chronic disease burden. Where we live, what we eat, how much we exercise, the air we breathe and whom we associate with; all of these environmental factors play a role. The combination of these factors over the life course is called the exposome. There is general (scientific) consensus that understanding more about the exposome will help explain the current burden of disease and that it provides entry points for prevention and ...
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