Helena Nordenstedt

I am a senior lecturer and associate professor in global health with broad research interests, which I combine with clinical work as an internal medicine physician. My research projects span from learning lessons from infectious disease outbreaks to prevent the next outbreak to non-communicable diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, with a special focus on low-income settings.

Furthermore, I am the expert coordinator in the field of health system resilience at the Centre for Health Crises.

Briefly about me:

• Specialist physician (internal medicine Danderyd Hospital since 2016)
• Associate professor and teacher in Global health KI (2020)
• Medical Editor for The Swedish Medical Journal (since 2023, Internal medicine and Global health)
• Senior advisor and previously Head of research for the Gapminder Foundation. Gapminder was started by the late Professor Hans Rosling, his son Ola Rosling and daughter in law Anna Rönnlund Rosling to "Fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview that everyone can understand".
• Physician for Médecins sans Frontières in Democratic Republic of Congo 2012, Liberia and Guinea during the big Ebola outbreak in 2014-15. Board member for the Swedish section of MSF 2015-16.
• SIGHT Fellowship 2017-2019 - Global Health Leadership Program. One out of 8 fellows in the first SIGHT Fellowship cohort.
• Medical degree and PhD at the Karolinska Institutet in 2007. My doctoral thesis was on the etiology of gastroesophageal reflux disease with Professor Jesper Lagergren as main supervisor, using Swedish and Nordic registers to carry out epidemiological research using different methodologies, including twin studies.
• After medical internship to become a licensed physician (AT) postdoc at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA under the supervision of Professor Hashem El-Serag in 2009-10.

After defending my doctoral thesis in 2007, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease: Etiological factors, I continued to study epidemiology of esophageal, stomach and liver cancer globally. 
Since 2013, after having worked clinically in DRC for a year, the focus of my research has changed to Global health, still striving for an epidemiological basis, but I have also realized the need to support epidemiological research with other types of studies, including qualitative. The three main projects that I am leading currently, in collaboration with local experts/researchers:

1. Capacity building in the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Doctoral training in HIV/Hepatitis B, maternal and child health, and antimicrobial resistance in collaboration with KI and Liberian researchers who provide PhD supervision for young Liberians at the National Institute of Public Health in Liberia. Funded by a grant from The Swedish Research Council. Four PhD students are registered in this project since 2022 (Virginia Kaydor, Neima Candy, Bode Shobayo, Adewale Akinjeji).
2. Studying the effects of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (2014-15), and how such an outbreak can best be countered, especially from a behavioral point of view. Funded by a grant from The Swedish Research Council. Two PhD students have recently finished their PhD training in this project. (Mohamed F Jalloh, Maike Winters)
3. The effects of Covid-19 on the health system in Sweden and in Cameroon. Two PhD students are registered in this project (My Fridell, Linda Esso)
4. Epidemiology and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in Uganda, with a focus on people living with HIV. Funded by a grant from The Swedish Research Council. One PhD student has defended her thesis (Rocio Enriquez) and two are currently working on this project. (Robert Ssekubugu and Charles Batte)

Teaching is the foundation for everything I do. It is even how I learnt global health when switching from gastrointestinal epidemiology to global
health. Trying to make the bigger picture of global health easily understandable is my passion, from global demography to disease 
burden.

In the late 1990s Professor Hans Rosling started a a 5-week elective undergraduate course called Global health. Roughly 70 students take the course each semester and spend two weeks of the course in a low- or lower-middle income country like Uganda, Tanzania, Vietnam and Laos. I have been the co-course leader and course leader since 2013.

In the new 6-year Medical Program at KI global health is part of the national curriculum, and I am now engaged in teaching medical students in semester 1, 4 and 5. One example is a seminar for the medical students called "Global health in Sweden" where the students learn how to interpret basic health indicators, and how this can be used even as a physician in Sweden.

Since 2016, I am also responsible for the 2-week course called "Non-communicable diseases, injuries, natural emergencies and conflicts in a global health perspective*" which is part of the Master of Global Health at KI, and with the new 2-year master's program in Global health, I will be responsible for the NCD parts of ther Global burden of disease course.

In 2016 I coordinated a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Global health together with Hans Rosling and other colleagues. We had more than 20, 000 participants from all over the world registering for this course on the EdX platform.