Steven Vanderstichelen

Steven Vanderstichelen (born 1990) is a post-doctoral researcher working at the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) & Ghent University. He obtained his Master’s degree in Sociology at Ghent University in 2014. In 2015, he joined the End-of-Life Care Research Group (VUB & Ghent University) as a junior researcher. He obtained his PhD in Social Health Sciences in 2019. His main research interests are public health approaches to palliative care, volunteering in end-of-life care, compassionate communities, schools and workplaces, and death literacy.

Current activities:

Steven’s projects include the ‘Attentive Visitors’ (KOTK) project, ‘uncovering the causal mechanisms related to death literacy’ (FWO), ‘EU-CoWork’ (Horizon-RIA), and the evaluation of the Flemish government’s palliative care reform.

Steven is one of the core steering members of the VUB Interdisciplinary Research Program and Centre of Expertise on Compassionate Communities (IRP16, IRP24), a Steering Group member of the EAPC Reference Group on Public Health and Palliative Care, a Public Health Palliative Care international council member, and a founding member and co-chair of the International Death Literacies Network. Steven was also a Steering Group Member of the former EAPC Task Force on Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care, and founding member and previous chair of both the Flemish-Dutch Learning Network Compassionate Communities, and the international Learning Network on Compassionate Schools.