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Christina van der Feltz - Cornelis
Chair of Psychiatry and Epidemiology

Profile

Biography

Professor Christina van der Feltz – Cornelis, psychiatrist-psychotherapist and epidemiologist, joined the University of York as one of the 60th Anniversary inspirational research leaders with a Chair of Psychiatry and Epidemiology in 2018. She moved to York from the Netherlands, where she held an endowed chair at Tilburg University as Professor of Social Psychiatry from 2010 - 2019. She is a member of the Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences, and holds a joint appointment with the Hull York Medical School (HYMS). She registered as a psychiatrist with full licence to practice in the UK and as an honorary consultant psychiatrist with Tees Esk and Wear Valley (TEWV) NHS Trust where she provides a specialist assessment service and treatment for people with complex combined somatic and psychiatric conditions. She is honorary professor, Institute of Health Informatics, University College London since 2022. Follow Christina @VanFeltz, at ORCID or at Linkedin.

Christina is a world-renowned mental health researcher whose research draws on her clinical background; she was awarded a Cum Laude at her MD graduation at the School of Medicine Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1988 and combines research with clinical work, management and teaching. She registered as psychiatrist and psychotherapist in 1992 and as an epidemiologist in 1996. She completed her doctorate (PhD 2002) on Psychiatric consultation for patients with somatoform disorder in general practice at VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam. She led a group of PhD students/clinical researchers and postdocs at Trimbos Instituut and CLGG/Tilburg University and currently leads a team at the University of York.  She founded and directed the Clinical Centre for Body, Mind and Health at GGz Breburg, Tilburg (2010-2018), and together with her team won the Award Clinical Centre of Excellence (Keurmerk TOPGGz) in 2014. She has generated competitive research income of € 24.8M in the Netherlands, European funding and the UK, as main applicant and co-applicant. Her research supervision has supported fourteen successful PhD students to completion.

Qualifications

  • MD Medicine, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1988
  • MedSc Psychiatry, University of Amsterdam, 1992
  • Member of the Dutch Association of Psychiatrists and registered as psychotherapist, 1992
  • Reg VvE Epidemiology, 1996
  • PhD Medicine, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, 2002
  • Reg SMWBO Epidemiology, 2006
  • International Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, 2013
  • Full license to practice gmc/ Honorary Consultant Psychiatry, NHS, UK, 2018
  • International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, 2023

Research

Overview

Christina endeavours to conduct research leading to better understanding, diagnosis and treatment of common mental disorders and the interface of somatic symptoms. At the University of York, she started and leads the Translational Research into the Interface of Physical and Mental Health research theme. She uses designs such as general population as well as clinical epidemiological studies, clinical trials, proof of concept studies, systematic reviews of trials as well as mixed methods and Delphi studies. She is involved in studies into long COVID and leads studies on Functional Neurological Disorder. Follow Christina’s achievements.

Projects

  • As Co-investigator in the £6.8M NIHR research and DHSC funded new study of long COVID- STIMULATE-ICP (Symptoms, Trajectory, Inequalities and Management: Understanding Long COVID to Address and Transform Existing Integrated Care Pathways), Christina leads the exploration of mental health aspects and the transferability of the findings to other long-term conditions. See the details.
  • Christina is Co-investigator in the NIHR funded study on GP wellbeing in COVID-19 times.
  • Christina leads the University of York team of the EMPOWER project: A European collaborative project aimed at reducing work stress started January 1st 2020, in which the University of York is one of the collaborating partners. It is funded with € 3.99M by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.  
  • Christina is international member of the Scientific Advisory Board on the IMPACT in South Asia Research project, funded by the NIHR Global Health Program since 2018.

Earlier research

Christina’s projects include the first trials to date of psychiatric consultation and collaborative care in the Netherlands.

  • For Medically Unexplained Symptoms the widely cited POCO trial, which formed the evidential base for recommendations in the Multidisciplinary Guideline for MUS and somatoform disorder in 2011, and for the guideline for psychiatric consultation;
  • For depressive disorder the CC:DIP trial, performed in primary care, which showed high efficacy compared to usual care and provided the evidential base for recommendations in the update of the NHG-wide depression standard recommendations;
  • The CC:DOC trial performed in occupational care, which received an editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry;
  • For anxiety disorders the CC:PAD trial funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, showing the efficacy of a stepped collaborative care approach compared to usual care.
  • For Return To Work in common mental disorders the ECO trial, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, showing the efficacy of a blended eHealth intervention combined with collaborative care aimed at Return To Work. This work was awarded the Burgerpenning for excellent research in the field of Work and Mental Health in 2017.
  • Christina collaborated in several EU Sanco and FP7 funded research projects aimed at suicide prevention, the European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD) and Optimizing Suicide Prevention programs and their Implementation in Europe (OSPI).
  • Christina acquired funding for and led a regional suicide prevention project in the Netherlands, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development: Suicide Prevention by Monitoring and Collaborative Care (SuPreMoCol), from October 2016 until 2021. The results of this project were promising with a reduction of 21% in suicides during the project.  
  • Christina was involved in agenda setting for mental health research at European level, in the context of ROAMER, an EU FP7 funded project, and on behalf of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine.
  • Christina was UK National Co-ordinator for the International Survey of Liaison Psychiatry and Covid, together with Dr Lee of the University of Exeter.  
  • During mental health week 2020, Christina launched the study into workstress in the COVID-19 era, a survey among staff and students of the University of York and Hull York Medical School exploring stress and resilience in the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown. After a first publication, follow up in this project is ongoing.
  • Christina led the CANDO study, a feasibility study exploring pathogenic mechanisms in Conversion disorder/FND.
  • Christina led the project Research priority setting for Medically Not Yet Explained Symptoms (MNYES) in an Anglo-Dutch partnership with the James Lind Association. This project started December 2019 and ended in 2021, establishing research priorities in the domain of MNYES from the perspective of patients, carers and clinicians.

Research group(s)

  • Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences
  • York Biomedical Research Institute
  • HYMS

Available PhD research projects

  • Christina is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas: Somatic Symptom Disorder, Chronic Pain, Medically Unexplained Symptoms, Return To Work, Suicide Prevention.

Supervision

  • Professor Christina van der Feltz-Cornelis is supervisor, with Dr Dimitris Lagos and Stephanie Bramley as co-supervisors, in a PhD project on the clinical management of functional neurological disorder.
  • Professor Christina van der Feltz-Cornelis was second supervisor in an interdisciplinary PhD project on the phenomenology of trauma with the department of Philosophy. Professor Matthew Ratcliffe was first supervisor. This was the first interdisciplinary PhD supervision collaboration between the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Health Sciences. The PhD project was finished in 2020, with a viva without corrections.

Publications

Full publications list

Christina co-authored over 260 international and national articles on research, guidelines and teaching, book chapters and a monograph, with currently 209 Web of Science citations (for other papers, see google scholar profile). Her original papers and review papers have been citied over 10400 times, including five highly cited articles in  WoS in 2022, one WoS highly cited in 2020, one WoS highly cited in 2018, and one WoS Top Paper in 2015, and one hot paper in Field in WoS (2021). Her current Web of Science SCI H-index is 39, and Google Scholar H-Index 54.

Teaching

Undergraduate

  • Christina teaches undergraduate medical students on the topic of stress and resilience in a module developed by her in the HYMS SSIP program
  • Christina offers undergraduate medical students the opportunity to work with her research team in the context of HYMS Inspire projects. One INSPIRE student supervised recently published a review as outcome of INSPIRE

Postgraduate

  • Christina has extensive experience in Postgraduate teaching. She currently supervises a PhD student in the University of York. Christina is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas: Somatic Symptom Disorder, Chronic Pain, Medically Unexplained Symptoms, Return to Work and Suicide Prevention.

MHARG Seminar Series

Christina launched the MHARG Seminar series in January 2021.

The MHARG Seminar Series has been created to encourage PhD students, Early Career Researchers, and other researchers to present their work to other members of MHARG. The Seminars are chaired by senior members of MHARG. The Seminars are presented online. Whilst working remotely, we might feel isolated from our work colleagues; these seminars are a way to keep in touch with other members of the group and to learn about the projects they are working on. Presentations could outline questions that need to be answered in the research area, which may benefit from a discussion from a broad range of expertise. Alternatively, a new methodology that might help others is very much worth sharing. This might be something that exists here at York or through collaboration with other entities or indeed something for which there is a pressing need to bring to York. The seminars are held monthly on Monday and members of MHARG can attend.

External activities

Overview

Christina's external activities are, amongst others:

Memberships

Christina was awarded the distinction International Fellow at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in recognition of significant contributions to Psychiatry (2013).

Christina is specialist associate of the Royal College of Psychiatry (RCPsych) since 2018.

She is a member of the International College of Psychosomatic Medicine (ICPM) and was awarded psychosomatic specialist in 2022.

An International Distinguished Fellowship was awarded to Christina to join an elite group of psychiatrists with this honorary distinction who continue to make significant contributions to the field of psychiatry at American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2023).

Invited talks and conferences

Inaugural Address

Only the invited lectures of the last 5 years are mentioned here. Some of them can be viewed on YouTube. Keynote lectures are in bold. 

  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2022) July 1st. Neurology and Psychiatry, where do they meet? Focus on FND.  A contribution from Psychiatry. Invited Lecture at the Big Questions in Neuroscience Annual meeting, London
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2021) STIMULATE-ICP. December 16th. Invited lecture at the EURONET-SOMA Long COVID interest group
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2021) The James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership for Medically Not Yet Explained Symptoms. November 3rd. Invited lecture at the EURONET-SOMA webinar
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2021) The CANDO Study. A feasibility study exploring systemic low-grade inflammation and epigenetic factors in CD/FND. May 20th. Invited lecture at the RCPsych Faculty of Liaison Psychiatry Annual Conference, 19-21 May 2021
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2021) What Interventions Work for Suicide Prevention? And Do They Work for the Elderly? Invited lecture held April 12th at EPA Workshop Assisted suicide in the elderly. Chair: prof. Gabrielle Stoppe. European Psychiatric Association Annual conference, virtual meeting, 10–13th April 2021
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2021) How students can cope with study stress in the Covid-19 era. York Wellbeing Lecture, University of York, February 18th 2021
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2020) Dealing with hardship: stress and resilience in the COVID-19 era. York Philosophical Society, December 1st 2020
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2020) Results of the CANDO Study. Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, November 4th 2020
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2020) The Conversion And Neuro-inflammation Disorder Observational (CANDO) Study. Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust Department of Psychological Medicine Liaison Psychiatry Webinar Series, October 29th 2020
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2020) Trauma, stress and biomarkers in somatic symptom disorders. University of Cambridge Psychiatry Departmental lecture series, October 8th 2020
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2019) Which treatment approaches are most beneficial for patients with diabetes and depression? Invited lecture at the Symposium: Diabetes, depression and cognitive function, International Diabetes Federation Annual conference in Busan, South Korea, December 3rd 2020
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2019) Stress and resilience in the workplace. ISPOGG Symposium: How to take care of ourselves and our team. Moderators: Marielle van Pampus & Harry B.M. van de Wiel. The Hague, the Netherlands October 12th 2019
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2019) How can addressing mental health help create a safer world? Lloyds Register Foundation Conference, October 10th London UK. See lecture
  • Van der Feltz-Cornelis C.M. (2019) A European Research Agenda for Somatic Symptom Disorders, Bodily Distress Disorders and Functional Disorders on behalf of the EAPM: Where do we go from here? Invited lecture at the EAPM conference in Rotterdam, 19th-22nd June 2019, the Netherlands.

Media coverage

Christina is in the media regularly, television, radio, newspapers and journals, as well as on websites.

  • April 12th 2022, Christina was interviewed on BBC Radio York  about the Delphi study developed by her team regarding integrated care for Long COVID and Long-term conditions for STIMULATE-ICP
  • July 20th, 2021, A press release of the University of York was taken up in the Yorkshire Post regarding Christina’s acquisition as co-applicant of a 6.8 M grant for the STIMULATE-ICP project to evaluate integrated care versus Care As Usual in long-COVID. Christina had an internet interview related to that with Liam Arrowsmith
  • June 20th, 2021 she talked about long COVID and her research into that together with 30 partners in the UK with Jonathan Cowap, BBC Radio York
  • February 11th 2021: Christina interviewed Stephen Fry on the topic of mental health and student mental health in the context of the York unlimited
  • The Patient Doctor Relationship was discussed in the Huffington Post 
  • A news item about the CANDO study
  • A news item about the first results of SUPREMOCOL in 2019

Christina Van Der Feltz Cornelis

Contact details

Professor Christina van der Feltz - Cornelis
Chair of Psychiatry and Epidemiology

Tel: 01904 32(1313)

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