Blog Centre for Public Health in Economics and Business

The Centre for Public Health in Economics and Business (CPHEB) is proud to announce that Jana Holthöwer has won the Nicolaas Mulerius Foundation Dissertation Prize 2024 for her dissertation titled ‘Robots to the rescue? Shaping service experiences in healthcare and beyond'.  Holthöwer received the award for the best University of Groningen dissertation defended in 2024 during the Ceremony of Merits 2025.

A study by researchers Wieteke de Vries, Koert van Ittersum, and Jenny van Doorn, from the UG’s Faculty of Economics and Business, has unveiled critical insights into how nutritional decision aids (NDAs, like the Nutri-Score) can support healthier grocery shopping. The research, titled "With a little help from my retailer: Shopper acceptance of nutritional decision aids supporting healthy grocery shopping," highlights the challenges shoppers face in making healthy food choices amidst a complex and often overwhelming retail environment.

How can consumers be more accepting, satisfied of and compliant with service robots in frontline service settings, such as retail and even healthcare? This is the question Jana Holthöwer focused on in her PhD research. A relevant topic in this day and age of staff shortages. Holthöwer stresses that it is important to understand how robot characteristics and contextual factors can influence the service experience to be able to ensure a successful integration of service robots the health realm. This is at the core of her research and dissertation. With her work, she enriches our understanding of the integration of service robots in the healthcare sector.

We had a fantastic turnout at the E-healthy lifestyle symposium on July 8th at the House of Connections! The event was organized to honor the promotion of Elena Agachi and to discuss the costs, benefits, and responsibilities associated with eHealthy lifestyles.

PhD candidate Elena Agachi studied the potential of online preventive health programs. Her project was a cooperation between the University of Groningen and health insurance company Menzis. Elena’s research was centred around the lifestyle program SamenGezond, analyzing real world data on activities in the program, as well as healthcare costs. The project’s findings demonstrate the potential of online preventive programs to improve individual health, supporting the transition from reactive healthcare to proactive well-being.

Hoe kan je supermarktklanten verleiden tot het maken van gezondere en duurzamere keuzes? Daar hebben onderzoekers van het Centre for Public Health in Economics and Business (CPHEB) van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG) in samenwerking met Wageningen University & Research (WUR) de afgelopen vijf jaar onderzoek naar gedaan. Ze ontdekten onder andere dat supermarktklanten best gezondere keuzes willen maken, maar terugdeinzen als ze het gevoel hebben betutteld te worden.

It is predicted that within the next decade, around a third of current full-time occupations will be transformed into augmented services delivered by teams of humans and machines – and we already see this transition now, given that many of us are nowadays co-working with AI such as Chat GPT. Given the inevitable rise of human-robot teams, it is imperative to investigate how both the human client and the human co-worker can embrace human-robot teams, called cobotic teams. This is what Jenny van Doorn, Professor of Services Marketing, has set out to do in much of her research. An article on the unintended consequences of human-robot collaboration in healthcare services, that Van Doorn co-authored, was recently published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

A new study by current and former FEB researchers Rob Alessie, Viola Angelini, Gerard van den Berg, Jochen Mierau and Gianmaria Niccodemi sheds light on the long-term health implications of economic conditions in early life. The study, titled "Using Data on Biomarkers and Siblings to Study Early-Life Economic Determinants of Type-2 Diabetes," finds a correlation between being born under adverse economic conditions and the onset of type-2 diabetes later in life.

We are happy to share the summary report of the interdisciplinary Automation Workshops organized by Femke Cnossen (FSS), Milena Nikolova (FEB) and Richard Rijnks (FSS) in April 2023.