Marie-Louise Essink-Bot’s teaching and research activities focus on the link between public health and curative healthcare. She is responsible for a line of research entitled ‘The quality of care and diversity’, which explores aspects such as ethnicity-based variations in patient safety at Dutch hospitals (in collaboration with VUmc), the healthcare outcomes of low patient health literacy, and the ‘cultural  competency’ of care providers and care organisations.  She conducts research on the latter issue at the European level.

As coordinator of the ‘diversity’ theme in the UvA’s medical degree programme, Essink-Bot trains future doctors to provide good healthcare to all patients, regardless of their ethnic background or level of education. She is also working to reinforce the role of academic Social Medicine, for the benefit of both social-medical professional practice and the curative sector.

Essink-Bot has served as associate professor and principal investigator at the AMC-UvA’s Social Medicine department since 2008. Within that context she trains academic doctors for the Society and Health programme. Essink-Bot’s previous employers include the Health Council of the Netherlands and the Erasmus University Medical Center. Essink-Bot has published extensively in leading scientific journals. She holds management positions at various organisations, including the Dutch Association of Physicians for Policy, Management and Research on Social Medicine (NVAG).