On March 17, 2009, the Dutch Health Insurance company "CZ" and Tranzo,
department of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tilburg University, officially launched
a new academic collaborative centre called ‘Prevention Assured’ by signing an
agreement to collaborate in a structural, long-term relationship to stimulate research
on (cost-)effectiveness of (individual) prevention and aspects of its effective
implementation in health care. Core functions of Prevention Assured are generating
knowledge on (cost-)effectiveness of individual prevention by initiating research
projects and developing structural knowledge-exchange. Both more practical and
fundamental issues in cost-effectiveness of preventive interventions and measures
are translated into scientific questions for research. Main topics focus on development,
(pilot-)implementation, monitoring and evaluation of (cost-)effectiveness of preventive
instruments in individual prevention in health care practice.

The first project has started in June 2009 and focuses on cost-effectiveness of a
lifestyle-intervention for obese patients with diabetes (type 2). In a small-scale pilot
the intervention showed some promising, but very preliminary results in weight loss
and decrease of the progression of diabetes and consequently decrease of medication
use in the participants of the intervention. This study compares the intervention
effects of the experimental group (with sufficient numbers of participants) with a
control group.