Johan Bilsen

Prof. J. Bilsen, PhD, MSc, RN is head of the Mental Health and Wellbeing research group. He is also head of the Department of Public Health at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and vice-president of the Public Mental Health section of the European Public Health Association. He is doctor in social health sciences, master in management and policy of healthcare, registered psychiatric nurse and psychotherapist. He is member of the Center for Neuroscience in the VUB, board member of the Belgian Association of Public Health, Belgian representative in the governing board of the European Public Health Association, and member of several scientific committees. J. Bilsen has a long track record in social scientific research (quantitative-epidemiological as well as qualitative) in the field of public health and general wellbeing. His research is situated in different sub-domains, which include e.g. basic etiological studies, risk factors research, but also health services and policy research regarding mental health and general wellbeing. Research focuses on both the broad population and certain vulnerable sub-populations or risk groups in terms of mental health. Prof. J. Bilsen is promoter of several research projects and coached several junior researchers in obtaining their doctorate dissertation. He is reviewer of more than 15 international peer-reviewed journals and published about 150 scientific papers, often in high-ranked journals and has built an extensive international research network. He teaches public health, mental health, epidemiology, research methodology and quality in healthcare in the bachelor’s and master’s degree of medicine and health policy programs.  Before his academic career he acquired substantial field-experience as healthcare worker in diverse (mental) healthcare settings, ambulatory as well as residential, in Flanders.