Sexuality and intimacy are vital aspects of human life and wellbeing, regardless of one’s health. Incurable cancer and its treatment can cause sexual health issues, impacting both patients and their partners. Given the double taboo of sexuality and death, the impact of incurable cancer on sexual wellbeing is often neglected. Recognizing and addressing sexual health is crucial for enhancing quality of life of these patients. This project therefore aims to understand sexual wellbeing and perceptions of the double taboo of people with incurable cancer and their partners, to support them in their needs and wishes.

The timing of light exposure, physical activity, and food intake are important cues for synchronising the biological clock. Disruption of the biological clock is a clear threat to both public health and vulnerable ecosystems. Especially in a highly industrialised country such as The Netherlands there is a mismatch between biological clocks and social demands. However, these cues have drastically – and abruptly - changed in our modern society due to the widespread use of artificial light and the round-the-clock demand for goods and services. Fundamental research has shown that precisely these conditions cause desynchrony among clock cells.

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Social policy decisions are often informed by short-term outcomes. This results in ‘firefighting’ instead of long-term prevention. This causes unnecessary suffering. Preventive policies early in life are probably particularly effective, given their lifelong consequences. These long-term effects remain invisible - models to quantify them don’t exist. We make these long-term effects visible, so they can be incorporated in policy decisions. We develop innovative simulation models for this and apply these to two policy cases: free-of-charge contraceptives, and childcare subsidies. Our models can also be applied to other policy domains, contributing to a shift in policy making from ‘firefighting’ to prevention.