Good health for all: an ethnographic study of frontline professionals in general and mental healthcare and social welfare

Heteren, F. van (2025)

Doctoral Thesis

In this dissertation I studied how frontline professionals relate to other professionals and to clients in caring for clients with combined psychosocial problems. This is relevant, because a high number of individuals face a combination of problems that cross professions and organizations. These problems create a pressing need for collaboration across professional and organizational borders in care and social welfare. This collaboration is complex and can become problematic, because many incentives- such as policies, professional norms and finances- go against interprofessional collaboration. This is why in this dissertation I analyzed how frontline professionals, in this complex context, work with other professionals and with clients. The research context is a large city in the Netherlands.

• Frontline professional
• Health conception
• Professional identity
• Health promotion role
• Interprofessional collaboration
• Team fluidity
• SES-reasoning
• Street-level bureaucracy
• Healthcare
• Social welfare

• All authors: Heteren, F. van
• Supervisor: Bussemaker, M.; Goeneveld, S.
• Co-supervisor: Raaphorst, N.
• Committee: Vos, H.; Slagboom, N.; Bovenkamp, H. van de; Noordegraaf, M.; Cecchini, M.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Faculty of Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden University
• Date: 2025-12-02
• ISBN (print): 9789465109367
• DOI: doi:10.60602/W62P-X417