Thao Lam is a postdoctoral researcher investigating the obesogenic built environment for Project OBCT: Biological, socioCultural, and environmental risk Trajectories; a five-year Horizon Europe project on prevention of obesity across Europe where she also works part-time as project manager. She is based at the Department of Epidemiology & Data Science at Amsterdam University Medical Centers and a member of Upstream Team. She completed her doctoral research with the Exposome-NL consortium in 2024. Thao holds a BSc. in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Amsterdam University College and MSc. Toxicology and Environmental Health from Utrecht University.
During her PhD trajectory with the Exposome-NL consortium, Thao developed various composite indicators to measure the obesogenic environment in the Netherlands, including walkability index, drivability index, the obesogenic built environment index. Subsequently, she linked them to relevant health outcomes in large population cohorts together with other colleagues from the Exposome-NL consortium. In 2023, Thao also went on a research visit to the National University of Singapore with support from the consortium and developed a localized, adapted version of the OBCT index for Singapore. With the skills acquired, she is currently scaling them up to European scale in her postdoctoral research.
Exposome-NL taught me to approach the exposome from multiple disciplines- and that collaborative research is the key forward!
Thao Minh Lam, Nicolette den Braver, Haykanush Ohanyan, Ilonca Vaartjes, Joline WJ. Beulens, Jeroen Lakerveld, Alfred Wagtendonk
Environmental Research Volume 251, Part 1 (2024)
Mingwei Liu, Paul Meijer, Thao Minh Lam, Erik J Timmermans, Diederick E Grobbee, Joline W J Beulens, Ilonca Vaartjes, Jeroen Lakerveld
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (2023)
Thao Minh Lam, Alfred J. Wagtendonk, Nicolette R. den Braver, Derek Karssenberg, Ilonca Vaartjes, Erik J. Timmermans, Joline W. J. Beulens, Jeroen Lakerveld
Obesity, volume 31, issue 1 (2023)
T.M. Lam, I. Vaartjes, D.E. Grobbee, D. Karssenberg, J. Lakerveld
Int J Health Geogr . 2021 Feb 1;20(1):7.
Thao Minh Lam, Zhiyong Wang, Ilonca Vaartjes, Derek Karssenberg, Dick Ettema, Marco Helbich, Erik J. Timmermans, Lawrence D. Frank, Nicolette R. den Braver, Alfred J. Wagtendonk, Joline W. J. Beulens & Jeroen Lakerveld
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity volume 19, Article number: 50 (2022)
Beulens JWJ, Pinho MGM, Abreu TC, den Braver NR, Lam TM, Huss A, Vlaanderen J, Sonnenschein T, Siddiqui NZ, Yuan Z, Kerckhoffs J, Zhernakova A, Brandao Gois MF, Vermeulen RCH.
Diabetologia. 2021 Nov 18.
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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