Els R. Nieuwenhuijsen Eldersveld, PhD, MPH, OTR

CDHW Member

Biography

Dr. Nieuwenhuijsen received her bachelor’s equivalent degree in Occupational Therapy from the Dutch School of Occupational Therapy in Amsterdam in 1968; a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 1985; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Community Health from Walden University in 2003. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation (NIDRR) within the Department of PM&R at U-M from 2003-2005. Dr. Nieuwenhuijsen retired as adjunct research investigator from the University of Michigan's Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Department (PM&R) in 2016.

Throughout her career, Dr. Els R. Nieuwenhuijsen Eldersveld has been involved in many initiatives that allowed her to combine her expertise in physical rehabilitation and public health. She co-founded the American Public Health Association (APHA) Disability Section (1998), field tested the ICIDH-2 Beta 1 (now the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (1998), and was the pilot test coordinator of the Accessibility and Inclusion Ministry (AIM) Program at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor (2013-2016).

She has worked in the Netherlands, France and the United States in clinical practice, administration, and research. Dr. Els R. Nieuwenhuijsen Eldersveld is currently retired but still active in the disability space. Her latest work is the video The Meaning of Disability (2021), now available on YouTube.