C.J.P. Webers
Casper Webers is an assistant professor in musculoskeletal epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology and Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI). His research involves both inflammatory and non-inflammatory chronic musculoskeletal diseases. His focus is on discrepancies between the patient perspective and physician perspective on disease and health state, the role of treatment goals in disease management, and the influence of the individual's context on disease course and treatment success. Ultimately, he aims to capture patient heterogeneity in clinical and personal characteristics to identify distinct subgroups (phenotypes), and use this information to work towards personalized management strategies.
Other areas of research expertise: societal and economic consequences of disease and management strategies (cost-effectiveness analysis and health technology assessment, work participation outcomes), methodology (observational studies and trials), statistics.
In addition, he teaches Bachelor and Master students on various epidemiological topics.
Expertises
- Epidemiology and research methodology (design, conduct and analysis of trials, observational studies/registries)
- Health economic evaluations (trial-based and model-based evaluations)
- Statistics (various type of regression analyses, longitudinal data analysis, latent class analysis, handling of missing data)
Career history
Originally trained as a medical doctor, Casper decided to pursue a fulltime academic research career. After his medical education, he completed his PhD in Rheumatology at the division of Rheumatology of the MUMC+ under the supervision of prof. Annelies Boonen and prof. Astrid van Tubergen. His thesis focused on health and socioeconomic outcomes in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), and the role of context on these outcomes. After completion of his PhD, he continued working at the same division as a postdoctoral researcher. During this period his also completed a second Master's degree in Epidemiology.
His current research is focused on care for chronic musculoskeletal diseases (both inflammatory and non-inflammatory) in daily practice. Topics of his research include the various perspectives (patient/physician) on health and disease and how to integrate these, and the use of treatment goals in disease management. His goal is to contribute to musculoskeletal care that accounts for heterogeneity (mechanism-based) and individual circumstances (context-sensitive). Finally, he is interested in both the personal impact of disease as well as the societal consequences, such as costs.
In addition to conducting his own research, he supervises several PhD students as well as Master students for the Epidemiology programme, and teaches at the UM.