Natascha Holbæk Pedersen

Natascha Holbæk Pedersen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark. She is affiliated with the Research Unit of Exercise Epidemiology and actively contributes to public health research focusing on children's and adolescents' physical activity, school-based interventions, and the impact of national health policies.

Her research interests include:

• Exercise epidemiology and population-level physical activity patterns
• School-based health promotion and policy evaluation
• Childhood obesity prevention
• Mixed methods approaches in public health
• Biomechanical and accelerometer-based measurement of movement

Her recent publications reveal a strong focus on evaluating the impact of Denmark's nationwide school reform, particularly the 45-minute daily physical activity policy, using natural experiments, interrupted time series, and cluster-randomized trials. She frequently collaborates with public health and sports science researchers across Danish institutions.

Her work has been widely covered in Danish media, where she has communicated findings on increased physical activity among schoolchildren post-reform. She has taught courses in applied biostatistics and epidemiology and has participated in academic conferences as both a speaker and attendee.

Notable research contributions include:

• Evaluating the Generation Healthy Kids intervention
• Mapping physical activity behaviors using accelerometer data from over 7,500 children
• Assessing the impact of school policies on BMI trends