News archive

Team member Carina King with colleagues’ have an article published in this month’s issue of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The paper that is also featured on the cover, is about a multifacility, prospective, observational study conducted in rural Bangladesh to evaluate the potential effect of pulse oximetry implementation on the WHO IMCI-based outpatient care of 3848 young children with suspected pneumonia.

Dr Giulia Dallagiacoma graduated from medical school at the University of Pavia, Italy, where she also recently completed her specialty in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. As part of her specialty training, she had the opportunity to visit another university and therefore joined Karolinska Institutet as a guest researcher to write her thesis project on RSV prevention among children.

Recently four of the researchers at the Department of Global Public Health received funds for different research projects, Kristi Sidney Annerstedt, Anna Ohlis, Ann Liljas, and Renee Gardner. We asked them a few questions to know more about the projects and what the funds will contribute to.

According to UNICEF, approximately one in five young people suffer from mental health issues, which in turn often leads to risk-taking with alcohol, tobacco and drugs. In the long run, it can cause lifelong health impairments in adulthood. In a three-year project coordinated by Karolinska Institutet, a method used to improve young people’s wellbeing in India, Kenya, the U.S. and Colombia is being evaluated to see if it can work in other parts of the world.

Lifestyles, the pandemic and dental care were some of the topics under discussion when Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health Jakob Forssmed visited Karolinska Institutet on 28 August, the same day as the autumn term kicked off.

Earlier this summer UIDP in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet held a two-day event where strategic thinkers and leading practitioners met to discuss approaches for increasing innovation and building strong partnerships between universities, industry, and government. One of the invited speakers was Tobias Alfvén, who discussed how different sectors can contribute to the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The podcast Riskzonen, featuring well-known KI staff members Mattis Öberg and Emma Frans, is back with a new season! The four episodes were released in May and June, and after a brief break over summer, more episodes will now be released each Monday, starting on 28 August. Each episode features the topic health crisis, in one way or another, ranging from relief efforts in war to antibiotic resistance. The new season is made in collaboration with the Centre for Health Crises.

Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals team members Olivia Biermann and Mariam Claeson are commissioners on the second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing. Together they co-lead the commission’s workstream on the political economy of adolescent mental health and well-being. Last month, May 9-11, they visited Nairobi, Kenya for a midterm meeting to present and discuss the progress of the workstreams of the commission.

At the Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals' team meeting May 17, students supervised by team members were invted to present their thesis. All students gave excellent presentations on various topics within global health, followed by questions and discussion in the team. Thank you to all the students that joined us to present and congratultions on your great work.

Students from the study programmes in nursing, radiography, medicine and psychology attended the new elective course in Sustainable Health and Development, 7.5 credits, which is offered for the first time in the spring term of 2023. The course is developed by the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health, which is a cooperation between KI and Makerere University.

Juliet Mwanga-Amumpaire is a paediatrician and Associate Professor of paediatrics at Mbarara University with over ten years of experience conducting clinical research. She is currently the director of Epicentre Mbarara Research Centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières that conducts health related research aiming to guide policy for stakeholders in health. She recently pursued her PhD where she studied the quality of care at private health facilities in Uganda.

UNICEF Sweden, UNICEF Office of Innovation and the Swedish Network for Global Child Health hosted a seminar to discuss The State of the World’s Children (SOWC), a bi-annual report published by UNICEF. This year it focuses on routine childhood vaccinations. Tobias Alfvén and Stefan Swartling Peterson from Karolinska Institutet moderated the panel discussions From Vaccine to Vaccination and Convergence of State of the World's Children and EU global health strategy.

University of Rwanda and the Swedish Embassy in Kigali celebrated 20 years of cooperation. At the three day-celebration in Rwanda were representatives from the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology, Uppsala University among others. Following the celebration, KTH held a two-day workshop as a kickoff for expanded and deepened cooperation under a new agreement that was signed. Stefan Swartling Peterson and Giulia Gaudenzi report from their trip to Rwanda.

The newborn care researchers in the team Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals, have visited research colleagues at the Phu San Hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam. The visit included meetings with the director and vice-director of Phu San, Dr Nguyen Duy Anh and Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, visits to hospital departments, presentation of ongoing and upcoming research, workshops, simulation trainings and planning of studies including the NeoSpirit project and future Vietnamese PhD candidates.

Elin Larsson has been appointed to the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG) to the HRP, i.e. the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction.

Funding for the Minor Field Studies program (MFS-program) has been withdrawn due to economic instability and the war in Ukraine. But, says Associate professor Claudia Hanson at the Department of Global Health at Karolinska Institutet, the withdrawal also indicates a moving away from global solidarity.

Several KI researchers are part of an international project that has been awarded nearly $15 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with $1 million co-funding from the Swedish government. The project involves a multi-country study to better understand the burden of Human papillomavirus (HPV) among girls and women in low and lower middle-income countries.

Mats Hallgren receives a grant of 3 930 000 SEK for the project “Post covid-19 as a threat to healthy ageing: a randomized controlled trial of yoga to improve quality of life”.

Being on parental leave is protective against poorer mental health particularly among mothers, with evidence of this beneficial effect continuing in later life, according to a systematic review in The Lancet Public Health.

Our newest team member Irene Wanyana joins the Department of Global Public to pursue her PhD. In her research project titled Multisectoral Approaches to Sustainable Health in Uganda, A focus on the role of climatic variabilities on maternal and child health, Irene aims to explore the linkages that exist between health and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Uganda.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI is expanding its group of expert coordinators. This time it is the area of expertise is health systems resilience, and it comes in the form of Helena Nordenstedt, associate professor and medical doctor, with an extensive experience. Her research interests span the area of global health and resilience to crises on a systems level.

The Centre for Health Crises at KI has published its first annual report, covering activities at the Centre during 2022. Since it is the centre's first year in operation, the report also outline the background to the establishing of the centre, the centre's organisational structure and introduces the staff.

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria has left many thousands dead and injured, and caused widespread devastation. Relatives, colleagues and friends elsewhere are also greatly affected.

This year's first edition of Barnläkaren, the Swedish Paediatric Assosiaction's magazine, is published. The theme of the latest issue is global health and the Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals research team leader Tobias Alfvén was the guest editor. Download the paper to read about the research from the child health team members.

Minister for Education Mats Persson met researchers and students when he visited Karolinska Institutet on 1 February. Topics of discussion with the students included the conditions relating to clinical placements, student funding rules and the situation for overseas students and doctoral students. The researchers, for their part, talked about the progress being made in areas such as precision medicine and about KI’s preparedness for new health crises.

In September 2O22 the HoliCare project was launched under the coordination of KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and gathering 14 partners across Africa and Europe including Karolinska Institutet. The project’s ambition is to tackle the challenge of diagnostics, treatment and prevention of Respiratory Tract Infections (RTIs), the leading cause of death in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

The world is quickly approaching a tipping point when it comes to preventing many of the devastating consequences of the climate crisis. We see the effects of it on the environment and our planet, and in recent years the discussion on the effects of climate change on human health has grown. But what do we know about the effects on children? Doctoral student Daniel Helldén, presents at the Global Child Health conference organized by University of Calgary.

Antiviral drugs almost completely reduce the risk of mothers passing on HIV infection to their children, even in a low-income country with a high HIV incidence such as Tanzania, according to a new study in The Lancet HIV by researchers from Karolinska Institutet. The discovery raises hopes of achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of eliminating the spread of infection from mother to child.

The newborn care researchers in the global child health and sustainable development goals team have had a visit from research colleagues at the Phu San Hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam, November 23-26. The visit included workshops on ongoing and upcoming collaborations and studies including the NeoSpirit project and planning for future Vietnamese PhD candidates as well as visiting hospitals.

Every year an estimated 140,000 new cases of the disease noma are reported and of the people effected approximately 90% die. Still most people have never heard of this preventable and in early stages treatable disease. That is why MSF Sweden, in partnership with Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Society of Medicine organized an event to increase awareness on noma. The award-winning documentary "Restoring Dignity " was shown followed by a panelist discussion including two noma survivors.

The world's biggest community for tropical medicine and global health, the American Society for Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH), had its annual meeting between the 30th of October and November 3rd in Seattle, USA. Global Child Health and SDG research team members Mattias Schedwin and Kevin Baker that participated and were selected to present their research, share their experiences and thoughts from the conference.

“Our planet, our health – an intergenerational dialogue” – the title of this year’s Rosling Seminar at Karolinska Institutet. The seminar, which was held 5 October, was jointly arranged by KI and the WHO with participants attending on site and online.

The research team Global Child Health and the Sustainable Development Goals in collaboration with the Nobel Prize Museum hosted a seminar on global child health as part of the Nobal Calling Stockholm week. Juliet Mwanga-Amumpaire from Mbarara University in Uganda and Tobias Alfvén, associate professor at the Department of Global Public Health, discussed why five million children die every year and what is needed for more children to survive.

Various health care interventions can, to put it in simplified terms, yield different amounts of health per invested Swedish krona. But how can subjective experiences, such as quality of life, be brought into these calculations? Researchers at Karolinska Institutet find ways to make health economic decisions.

How is health equity even calculated? Researchers Emelie Agardh and Matteo Bottai at Karolinska Institutet are looking for new methodological paths, among other things inspired by the game Master mind.

We know that lifestyle affects health. But even factors that you cannot control have an influence. Here are six examples.

Have a car. Don’t be poor. Don’t have a stressful job. Age, gender and socioeconomics are some of the factors that affect your risk of developing an illness and of dying prematurely. Sweden has set the goal of levelling out influenceable health gaps within one generation. But is this goal realistic? And why is it so difficult to achieve? Read an article series about health inequities from the Swedish magazine Medicinsk Vetenskap.

Conflict causes deaths and injuries, as well as health consequences from the displacement of populations, breakdown of health services and an increased risk of disease transmission. But in DRC that has suffered from conflict and instability for decades, conflict alone is a poor indicator for child health. In his study, Mattias Schedwin, compares coverage of key child health policy indicators across provinces in DRC and their association with child mortality and level of conflict in the country.

A new study published in The Lancet shows that medical abortion can be carried out both safely and effectively via telemedicine, without a routine ultrasound examination. The study, which is a collaboration between researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, highlights the opportunities to provide safe and effective abortion services in low-resource settings.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Bristol have investigated the relationship between mode of delivery and sexual well-being several years after childbirth. The study, published in the journal BJOG, showed no difference in sexual frequency or sexual satisfaction in women who were delivered vaginally or by caesarean section.

Hearing the word ‘war injury’, one might think of bullet wounds, torn off limbs or burns from explosions. And whilst injuries such as these certainly feature in the palette of suffering that war brings, the reality is more complex, and to some extent perhaps also less cinematic.

The students' association IFMSA runs the Vår hälsa brinner (Our health is on fire) campaign to raise awareness and educate about the health impacts of climate change. Students see a need to work concretely on the issue, not least during their medical training. They have made an alphabet series illustrating the impact of climate change on public health and hold educational workshops. During Politician's Week in Almedalen, they held a workshop and distributed posters with the alphabet.

In March 2022, André Thunberg had his ISP seminar at the Department of Global Public Health. His research focuses on the prevalence and management of severe paediatric illness in Malawi. Besides his doctoral studies, André also works at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital as a resident doctor.

Anna-Mia Ekström has been involved with the Centre for Health Crises since the very beginning and is now a part of its first steering group. Before the Centre was formed, she was a member of KI’s interdisciplinary resource team post COVID-19 (KIRP), and the task force that helped shape the centre. Just like with her many other engagements her aim is to make a difference, especially for the most vulnerable.

The majority of cold wave related deaths occurred in middle-income countries followed by high-income countries, deaths were likely to occur during heat waves than cold waves or severe winter weather, in particularly in high-income countries and increased CO2 emissions can result in an increased number of deaths during severe weather events. That is the conclusion of a recently published study that looked at extreme weather events and deaths in the years 1999 to 2018.

Friday May 20, doctoral student Daniel Helldén had his halftime seminar at the Department of Global Public Health. Using a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Synergies Approach and interviews with stakeholders, Daniel aims to investigate the views and perceptions on the linkages between SDGs, different sectors and child health in Cambodia. Through machine learning, he also investigates non-health risk factors of morbidity from infectious diseases.

The Every Breath Counts Coalition Research Group is launching a PhD and early career researcher network to support emerging researchers working across any discipline in the area of pneumonia. The purpose is to promote networking and publish a monthly blog where early career researchers, and new research in the field are highlighted.

When others run away from bad things, Johan von Schreeb can be found dashing towards them. He has a wealth of experience in bringing order to chaotic situations – but as an administrator, he’s a complete disaster. Meet the professor who wants to control the health crises of the future.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have mapped how the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi forms new variants that are more effective at evading the immune system and causing disease. Their findings can give rise to new methods for diagnosing, preventing and treating Chagas disease, which affects millions of people in Central and South America, causing thousands of deaths every year. The study is published in the journal eLife.

One of KI’s largest international collaborations is with Makerere University in Uganda. In time for Makerere’s 100th anniversary, the partnership is to manifest itself in a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. A delegation from KI travelled in May to Uganda to cement the relationship.