Josefien van Olmen is a researcher and practitioner in primary care and health systems research, with substantive academic and clinical experience spanning four continents. She is Associate Professor in Primary and Interdisciplinary Care at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and holds a visiting appointment at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Family Medicine and Centre for Research in Health System Performance (CRiHSP), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

Her work integrates clinical insight with systems science to address complex health needs, particularly the delivery and scaling of integrated primary care. Her research portfolio addresses multimorbidity, chronic disease management, health systems and implementation research, with methodological emphasis on multi-country comparative work and reciprocal learning across contexts.

Her contributions include evidence on integrated care models for chronic disease in diverse settings, frameworks to design and evaluation scale-up, and strategies for linking public health and primary care to improve outcomes and equity. Her work has informed global primary care discourse, through peer-reviewed publications, leadership in research projects, policy dialogues and teaching on health systems and primary care.

As a keynote speaker, she brings both conceptual depth and practical insight on strengthening first-line health services to respond to evolving population health needs.