Jaroslava Kopčáková, PhD. (1986) received her Master degree in Psychology from the Faculty of Arts, P. J. Šafárik University in Kosice, Slovakia , and her PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. During her university studies, she was actively involved in the children’s organization Fenix, worked as a research assistant at KISH and the Child Line of Trust in Kosice, and completed several courses in psychology and psychotherapy. Until 2024, she served as junior and later on as a senior researcher at the Department of Health Psychology and Research Methodology at the Faculty of Medicine, P. J. Šafárik University in Kosice, Slovakia. Since 2024, she has been leading the Medical Education Centre at the same faculty. In addition, she holds an academic affiliation with the Olomouc University Social Health Institute (OUSHI) at Palacky University Olomouc, Czechia. She has participated and continues to participate in numerous national research projects (APVV, VEGA) as well as international and European initiatives, including VIPPA 2, 7FP SOPHIE HEALTH, International Visegrad Fund, Care4Youth study, the Erasmus+ project PARIPRE, and Health Experiences International (HEXI, formerly DIPEx International). As a long-standing member of the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study network, her research focuses on health and health-related behavior among school-aged children within their social context. Within HBSC, her work specifically emphasizes physical activity, leisure-time activities, and active living during adolescence, including objective measures of movement behavior. Currently, she is also involved in the “Rozhovory o zdraví HEXi Slovensko”, which focuses on patients’ experiences with health problems, treatments, and the system of care with specialty on the healthy development of children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems, and also on their parents. She has been a member of the European Health Psychology Society since 2012 and the European Network for Positive Psychology since 2017. Since 2020, she has been a member of the Health Enhancing Physical Activity (HEPA) Europe network and the Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!), where she serves as the country contact for Slovakia. Furthermore, she actively participates in developing the national Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth within the Global Matrix project of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance. She has published more than 40 research papers in SSCI journals, resulting in more than 500 Scopus citations; her h-index is equal to 13.
Selected scientific activities and projects:
| 2025 – 2029 | CSVM UPJS FM – Building and developing professional skills and competencies of medical and health sciences students using medical simulation tools at the Center for Simulator and Virtual Medicine at Faculty of Medicine of P.J. Safarik University in Košice |
| 2025 – 2025 | 09I03-03-V06-00018 Capital booster for APVV-22-0078 Mental health in adolescents in the context of current societal challenges |
| 2024 – 2028 | CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004583 Research of Excellence on Digital Technologies and Wellbeing |
| 2023 – 2027 | Mental health of adolescents in the context of current social challenges. APVV-22-0078 |
| 2022 – 2026 | Adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems and their families in the care system. APVV-21-0079 |
| 2021 – 2023 | Health and health-related behavior of adolescents and methods of prevention of lifestyle diseases KEGA 020UKF-4/2021 |
| 2021 – 2023 | Physical activity-related injuries prevention in adolescents (Project acronym: PARIPRE) in ERASMUS+ Sport Collaborative Partnerships Call |
| 2021 – 2023 | Physical activity-related injuries among Slovak adolescents VEGA 1/0179/21 |
| 2020 – 2023 | Mapping the trajectory and experiences of adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems in the care system: opportunities for improvement from the perspective of adolescents and their parents VEGA 1/0177/20 |
| 2019 – 2023 | Generation Z – New challenges in youth development. APVV-18-0070 |
| 2017 – present | Member of the European Network for Positive Psychology |
| 2017 – 2020 | Health literacy in a school-aged children as a part of education process in schools and the outcome of school based health education. VEGA 1/0427/17 |
| 2017 – 2018 | Member of work group “Health and active living” under the project of the Youth Department of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic in cooperation with IUVENTA |
| 2017 – 2017 | Member of work group “Let’s talk more – youth participation and interdepartmental cooperation” under the project of ZIPCeM (as collaboration of Youth Department of the Ministry of Education and Youth within the Youth Strategy of the Slovak Republic for 2014-2020) |
| 2016 – 2020 | Psychosocial development of children with emotional and behavioural disorders in the system of care – longitudinal study. APVV-15-0012 |
| 2013 – 2015 | Health and health-related behaviour within social context in adolescence. APVV-0032-11 |
| 2011 – 2015 | Project SOPHIE HEALTH-F3-2011-278173 – Evaluating the impact of structural policies on health inequalities and their social determinants and fostering change is realised within 7th Framework programme, HEALTH.2011.3.3-1 Developing methodologies to reduce inequities in the determinants of health. |
| 2014 – present | Psychosocial development of health disadvantaged school-aged children VEGA 1/0895/14 |
| 2012 – 2015 | ECOP project Strengthening scientific potential of the research teams in promoting physical activity at Palacky University, No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0171 |
| 2012 – 2012 | International Visegrad Fund: Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study: Supporting the Visegrad countries research network, No.21110275 |
Publications:
SSCI
Other publications
Dissertations
COHERENT 