The Dutch Disease Detectives:
Dutch Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group
a working community of the Dutch Society for Epidemiology (VvE)
June 2023

Chairs
Name: Dr Sonia Boender
Institute: Public Health Service Amsterdam (GGD Amsterdam), Department of Infectious Diseases Research and Prevention
Position: Senior Researcher & Team Manager
Email: sboender@ggd.amsterdam.nl

Name: Dr Alma Tostmann
Institute: Radboudumc Nijmegen
Position: Healthcare/IPC & Infectious Disease Epidemiologist / Senior Lecturer
Email: alma.tostmann@radboudumc.nl

Secretary
Name: Dr Raïssa Tjon-Kon-Fat
Institute: Public Health Service Zuid-Holland Zuid (GGD Zuid-Holland Zuid)
Position: Medical Doctor Infectious Disease Control
Email: ri.tjon-kon-fat@ggdzhz.nl

The Dutch Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (i.e. Dutch Disease Detectives) aims to unite all applied infectious disease epidemiologists associated with the Netherlands. This group represents the community of epidemiologists working on infectious diseases and public health; i.e. field epidemiologists, especially fellows and alumni from Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETP). Field epidemiologists exist by the grace of interdisciplinary backgrounds and collaboration, including health scientists, veterinarians, microbiologists, clinicians, public health professionals, communication specialists, modelers, statisticians, social scientists and policy makers, and more. The competency profile of FETP graduates in Europe has been designated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as core competencies for mid-career public health epidemiologists.

The Dutch Disease Detectives working community of field-epidemiologists is there to join forces, create visibility for the specialty, and to facilitate peer-collaboration for projects and training. The group is open for interested members of the VvE, also to facilitate exchange between epidemiology of communicable and noncommunicable diseases that are largely intertwined, for example comorbidities and HIV-infection and long-COVID. Read more about our initiative to put applied infectious disease epidemiology on the map in the Netherlands here in this article of the RIVM Infectieziekten Bulletin (article in Dutch).

You can join us as a member here via the Field Epidemiology Network Europe (FENE), a community for professionals in the field of epidemiology across Europe.

We work in close collaboration with the European EPIET Alumni Network (EAN).