Niels Nijsingh, PhD

Research interests

• Public health ethics: vaccination, newborn screening, antibiotic resistance, digital technology
• Ethics of Information: big data ethics, social epistemology
• Informed Consent in law and ethics: epistemic consent, parental consent
• 'Genethics': whole-genome sequencing, genetic engineering
• The role of normative theory in an interdisciplinary context

Research projects

• Data, access and consent in mHealth

Short CV

Niels Nijsingh is a public health ethicist, with a particular interest in the rights of the individual in an institutional context. In 2012, he obtained his PhD at the University of Utrecht, with a thesis on informed consent in the context of newborn screening practices. He has taught applied ethics as a lecturer in Utrecht, as well as at the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam). From 2015 until 2017, Niels worked for Be Informed, a software company that has developed an automated decision making platform. From 2017 until 2019 he worked as a Postdoc at FloV and the Centre of Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) on a project on antibiotic resistance. He currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine at Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU). He has worked as an editor for Podium voor Bio-Ethiek, a Dutch journal on bioethics for ten years.

Selected publications

Book chapters

• Nijsingh, N., Larsson, D. J., de Fine Licht, K., & Munthe, C. (2020). Justifying Antibiotic Resistance Interventions: Uncertainty, Precaution and Ethics. In: Jamrozik, E. & Selgelid, M. (eds.). Ethics and Drug Resistance: Collective Responsibility for Global Public Health. Cham: Springer.
• Nijsingh, N, Juth, N. & Munthe, C. (2017), “The Ethics of Screening”, in: International Encyclopedia of Public Health.
• Nijsingh, Niels (2009), “Newborn Screening and Choosing Whether to Know”, in: Dawson, A., The Philosophy of Public Health, pp. 111-21.
• Nijsingh & Düwell (2009), “Interdisciplinarity, Applied Ethics and Social Science”, in: Sollie & Düwell,m Evaluating New Technologies, pp. 79-93.
• Nijsingh, Niels (2007), “Informed Consent and the Expansion of Newborn Screening”, in: Dawson & Verweij, Ethics, Prevention, and Public Health, 198-212.

Peer-reviewed publications

• Nijsingh, N., van Bergen, A., & Wild, V. (2020). "Applying a precautionary approach to mobile contact tracing for Covid-19: The value of reversibility." Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 1-5.
• Nijsingh, Niels, and Anne van Bergen. (2019). "Epistemic architecture: steering the public perception of the messy problem of antibiotic resistance." Emerging Topics in Life Sciences 3(6), 737-740.
• Nijsingh, Niels, Christian Munthe, and DG Joakim Larsson. (2019). "Managing pollution from antibiotics manufacturing: charting actors, incentives and disincentives." Environmental Health 18(1), 1-5.
• Munthe, C., Nijsingh, N., de Fine Licht, K., & Joakim Larsson, D. G. (2019). Health‐related Research Ethics and Social Value: Antibiotic Resistance Intervention Research and Pragmatic Risks. Bioethics, 33(3), 335-342.
• Munthe, C., El-Alti, L., Hartvigsson, T., & Nijsingh, N. (2018). Disputing with patients in person-centered care. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 7(2), 231-244.
• Nijsingh, N. (2016). Whole genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool: Participant-centered consent. Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, 2(3), 407-415.
• Nijsingh, N. (2016) "Consent to epistemic interventions: a contribution to the debate on the right (not) to know." Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 19(1): 103-10.
• Nijsingh, N. (2013), “Krabbe Newborn Screening: The Issue of Informed Consent”, Public Health Ethics, 6 (1), 126 -8.
• Nijsingh (2012), “Blurring Boundaries”, American Journal of Bioethics, 12 (10), 26-7.
• Detmar, S., Dijkstra, N., Nijsingh, N., Rijnders, M., Verweij, M. & Hosli, E. (2008), "Parental Opinions about the Expansion of the Neonatal Screening Programme", Community Genetics 11 (1).
• Detmar, S. Hosli, E., Dijkstra, N., Nijsingh, N., Rijnders, M. & Verweij, M. (2007), "Information and Informed Consent for Neonatal Screening: Opinions and Preferences of Parents", Birth, 34 (3), pp. 238–44.

Other

• Van Est, R., Timmer, J., Kool, L., Nijsingh, N., Rerimassie, V., Stemerding, D. (2016), Rules for the digital human park; two paradigmatic cases of breeding and taming human beings: Human germline editing and persuasive technology. Background Paper For The 11th Global Summit Of National Ethics/Bioethics Committees (March 2016.)
• Nijsingh (2015) “De onzichtbare hand; over zoekmachines en vertrouwen”, Podium voor bio-ethiek, 3 (2).
• Nijsingh (2012) “New Genetics and Informed Consent”, Podium voor bio-ethiek 1(3).
• Nijsingh (2012), "Gezondheidszorg op maat"
• Nijsingh & Verweij, M. (2007), “Hielprik niet verder uitbreiden”, Medisch Contact 62 (10).
• Nijsingh (2007), “Rethinking informed consent; een recensie”, NVBE nieuwsbrief 14.