Paula van Dommelen, PhD

Senior Scientist, The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)

  1. The Netherlands

Biography

Dr. van Dommelen is a scientist at The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). Her main focus has been on the development of technological innovations and data science to protect and improve child health worldwide. This includes the development of innovative statistical methods (including artificial intelligence, prediction modelling, matching techniques, etc.), personalized child health care applications, frameworks for decision support systems, youth health care guidelines and implementation strategies, and research on mental and physical child health, including many aspects of child growth and assessment of child development, such as growth chart construction, growth curve analysis, factors relating early growth and development to later outcomes, and the early detection of disorders related to growth and development. She developed and implemented a guideline for preventive child healthcare professionals in order to improve early detection of pathological disorders associated with short stature (or growth faltering) or tall stature (or accelerated growth). She developed digital health solutions for the management of growth disorders in pediatric patients receiving growth hormone therapy. She has a broad experience in analyzing data from multiple sources, such as survey questions, electronic health records of Youth Health Care, monitoring health systems for screening, the Dutch Perinatal and Neonatal registers, the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics, the Netherlands Twin Register, worldwide eHealth tools for patients with growth disorders, and underlying data sets from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has published over 100 peer reviewed scientific publications with a total H-index of 38.

Recent Publications

  1. van Dommelen P, Arnaud L, Koledova E. Curve matching to predict growth in patients receiving growth hormone therapy: An interpretable & explainable method. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022 Oct 5;13:999077. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.999077.

  2. Savage MO, Fernandez-Luque L, Graham S, van Dommelen P, Araujo M, de Arriba A, Koledova E. Adherence to r-hGH Therapy in Pediatric Growth Hormone Deficiency: Current Perspectives on How Patient-Generated Data Will Transform r-hGH Treatment Towards Integrated Care. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2022 Jul 11;16:1663-1671. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S271453.

  3. Tornincasa V, Dixon D, Le Masne Q, Martin B, Arnaud L, van Dommelen P, Koledova E. Integrated Digital Health Solutions in the Management of Growth Disorders in Pediatric Patients Receiving Growth Hormone Therapy: A Retrospective Analysis. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022 Jun 30;13:882192. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.882192.

  4. Spataru A, van Dommelen P, Arnaud L, Le Masne Q, Quarteroni S, Koledova E. Use of machine learning to identify patients at risk of sub-optimal adherence: study based on real-world data from 10,929 children using a connected auto-injector device. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2022 Jul 6;22(1):179. doi: 10.1186/s12911-022-01918-2.

  5. van Dommelen P, van Zoonen R, Vlasblom E, Wit JM, Beltman M; Expert Committee. Guideline for referring short or tall children in preventive child health care. Acta Paediatr. 2021 Apr;110(4):1231-1238. doi: 10.1111/apa.15625.

  6. van Dommelen P, van Dijk O, de Wilde JA, Verkerk PH. Early developmental milestones in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2020 Oct;62(10):1198-1204. doi: 10.1111/dmcn.14623.

  7. van Dommelen P, Koledova E, Wit JM. Effect of adherence to growth hormone treatment on 0-2 year catch-up growth in children with growth hormone deficiency. PLoS One. 2018 Oct 24;13(10):e0206009. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206009.

  8. Scherdel P, Dunkel L, van Dommelen P, Goulet O, Salaün JF, Brauner R, Heude B, Chalumeau M. Growth monitoring as an early detection tool: a systematic review. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2016 May;4(5):447- 56. doi: 10.1016/S2213-8587(15)00392-7.

  9. Fleuren MA, van Dommelen P, Dunnink T. A systematic approach to implementing and evaluating clinical guidelines: The results of fifteen years of Preventive Child Health Care guidelines in the Netherlands. Soc Sci Med. 2015 Jul;136-137:35-43. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.05.001.

  10. Schönbeck Y, Talma H, van Dommelen P, Bakker B, Buitendijk SE, HiraSing RA, van Buuren S. The world's tallest nation has stopped growing taller: the height of Dutch children from 1955 to 2009. Pediatr Res. 2013 Mar;73(3):371-7. doi: 10.1038/pr.2012.189.

Research Expertise

  • Innovative statistical methods

  • Growth and development

  • Digital health solutions for preventive child healthcare and the management of pediatric patients