Sanne Verra is a PhD candidate at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her PhD aims to understand how multiple, time-varying, interlinked environmental conditions, in interaction with individual factors, contribute to socioeconomic inequalities in health and health behaviours. Sanne has a background in European Public Health and Public Policy and Human Development (Maastricht University), and gained experience leading behavioural experiments at the municipality of The Hague. 

Project description

Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequalities in health behaviour persist worldwide. Personal factors (such as race and gender) that influence health inequalities are often studied in isolation. In reality, individual experiences are not restricted to one layer of (dis)advantage alone. The multiplication of layers of personal factors (i.e. being female x Black x low income) allows us to uncover deprivations that are greater than the sum of their single-factor parts. This research project uses an intersectional approach to examine inequalities in subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and healthy eating behavior at intersections of advantage and disadvantage. This may allow us to uncover systemic inequalities in health behaviour.