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Researcher

Sara De Bruyn

  • Research Expertise:Dr. Sara De Bruyn is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology, affiliated with the Centre for Population, Family & Health (CPFH). Her research focuses on ecological stressors, mental health during the life course, and substance use. In her PhD she focused on understanding how ecological factors impact stimulant misuse among higher education students. In her postdoctoral research she focuses on the impact of ecological risk and protective factors on infants’ mental health.
  • Keywords:STIMULANT MISUSE, MIXED METHODS RESEARCH, Political and social sciences
  • Disciplines:Anthropology, Applied sociology, Demography, Policy and administration, Social change, Social psychology, Social stratification, Social theory and sociological methods, Social work, Sociology of life course, family and health, Sociology of organisations and occupations, Other sociology and anthropology, Citizenship, immigration and political inequality, International and comparative politics, Multilevel governance, National politics, Political behaviour, Political organisations and institutions, Political theory and methodology, Public administration, Other political science, Economic geography, Human geography, Recreation, leisure and tourism geography, Urban and regional geography, Other social and economic geography, Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications, Product development, Other social sciences
  • Research techniques:She is an expert in and firm believer of mixed-method research. This entails (1) executing (large-scale) quantitative data collections and analyzing the data with state-of-the-art techniques, including Structural Equation Modeling. And (2) performing in-depth qualitative interviews/focus groups, with specific expertise in sensitive topics (substance misuse and mental health).
  • Users of research expertise:De Bruyn carries out policy-supporting research and thus highly values collaboration with societal stakeholders. Throughout her PhD trajectory she widely disseminated her results to a non-scientific audience (e.g., Flemish Expertise Centre for alcohol, illegal drugs, psychoactive medication, gambling and gaming; Trimbos Institute, Psy-net, etc.). Also during her postdoc research, she will include a range of stakholders working on (infant) mental health (e.g., Preventive Care Association for young children in Flanders, World Association Infant Mental Health, Flemish Institute Healthy Living, etc.)