Our Team

Carmen Peuters is a health promotion researcher with a first MSc in Clinical and Health Psychology (KU Leuven, Belgium), a second in Research in Psychology Applied to Health Sciences (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), and a multidisciplinary PhD in Psychology and in Health Sciences (Ghent University, Belgium).

After working on the development of quality-of-life measures for cancer treatment research (EORTC, Brussels), Carmen then focused on health promotion. Her PhD project on the development and mixed-methods evaluation of a mobile healthy lifestyle intervention for promoting adolescent mental health, involved research on health behavior change, physical activity, sleep, the link between lifestyle and mental health, participatory design, and mHealth engagement. As postdoctoral researcher at ISGlobal, she now studies the environment as a complementary way to promote healthy living. She participated in the proGIreg project where she evaluated the impact of nature-based solutions in post-industrial cities on physical and mental health. She is currently involved in the Equal-Life project studying the social and physical exposome and child mental health.

Her main interests are on green space, urban planning and lifestyle behaviors for promoting community and planetary well-being.

Lines of research

• Environment and health
• Urban health
• Behaviour change
• Impact evaluation
• Multidisciplinary participatory design
• Mental health exposome

Main publications

• Peuters, C., Maenhout, L., Cardon, G. et al. A mobile healthy lifestyle intervention to promote mental health in adolescence: a mixed-methods evaluation. BMC Public Health 24, 44 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-17260-9
• Maenhout, L., Peuters, C., Cardon, G., Crombez, G., DeSmet, A., & Compernolle, S. (2022). Nonusage attrition of adolescents in an mHealth promotion intervention and the role of socioeconomic status: secondary analysis of a 2-arm cluster-controlled trial. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth, 10(5). https://doi.org/10.2196/36404.
• Peuters, C., Cummins, J., Vanderdriessche, A., DeSmet A., & Crombez, G. (2022). Assessing sleep-related attitudes with the implicit association test: a prospective study in young adults. Journal of Sleep Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13536.
• Maenhout, L., Peuters, C., Cardon, G., Compernolle, S., Crombez, G., & DeSmet, A. (2021). Participatory development and pilot testing of an adolescent health promotion chatbot. Frontiers in Public Health, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.724779.
• Peuters, C., Kalokerinos, E., Pe, M., & Kuppens, P. (2018). Sequential effects of reappraisal and rumination on anger during recall of an anger-provoking event. PloS one, 14. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209029.
• Aznar-Lou, I., Iglesias-González, M., Peñarrubia-Maria M. T., Mendive, J. M., Murrugarra-Centurión, A. G., Gil-Girbau, M.; González-Suñer, L., Peuters, C., & Serrano-Blanco, A. (2018). Diagnostic accuracy and treatment approach of depression in Primary Care: Predictive factors. Family Practice. https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmy098.