Lectures and seminars Faculty event with Márta Radó

About the speaker

Márta Radó is a new assistant professor at MEB. She obtained her PhD in Sociology from Corvinus University of Budapest and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Erasmus Medical Center (Netherlands) and Linkoping University (Sweden). She has researched child health, health behaviors, health inequalities, and policy evaluation using complex statistical methods (including causal inference methods, simulations, and social network analysis).

Abstract

Ensuring that every individual has a healthy start in life is crucial. High socioeconomic status during childhood not only provides material advantages but also contributes to a longer and healthier life. Despite significant improvements in healthcare and relatively low levels of material inequality in Sweden, health disparities persist. The underlying causes of these persistent inequalities remain unclear. My work focuses on understanding the mechanisms that contribute to child health inequalities.

In this introductory lecture, I provide an overview of my previous research on child health and child health inequalities, as well as my planned research for my assistant professorship at MEB. During my postdoctoral fellowship at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, I used causal inference methods (e.g. microsimulation and synthetic control methods) to investigate the effects of population-level tobacco control policies on child health. Despite the success of these policies in reducing smoking prevalence, inequalities in smoking still exist. One potential explanation for these persistent inequalities is the segregation of social networks by socioeconomic status. Therefore, my current project (granted by FORTE) examines the role of social networks in perpetuating smoking inequalities in school classes using longitudinal network analysis and agent-based simulation. Although this is the first comprehensive examination of the social network mechanisms that contribute to health disparities in small-scale social networks, the results may not be easily generalizable to the entire population. To address this, we are extending our work to the entire population of Sweden using population-level social network data obtained from the Swedish registers. Finally, I outline my plans to investigate other modifiable risk factors for child health inequalities.

Welcome to have lunch in Ljusgården at 12:00!