Helle Alvesson

I am an associate professor in global health and a medical anthropologist. As the 
departmental director of education at the Department of Global Public Health
I am promoting interdisciplinary and intercultural thinking in our master
programs and in my research.

My research focuses on the interface between community- and central-level
practices in health and disease. I am specialized in designing and analyzing
qualitative data in multi-disciplinary teams in low, middle, and high-income
settings. I lead qualitative research studies often nested in complex
interventions currently on maternal & child health, adolescent health and food environments. My work elucidates how 
people define, experience, and cope with health concerns, and how people
respond to public programs that promote improved human development.

My research involves different participatory methods and co-design 
processes to understand user perspectives in global public health challenges.
I am engaged in implementation science and the steps we need to take
to bridge the know-do gap.

I am leading the Youth Food Power project. We aim to narrow the transformation gap by strengthening the capacity of youth, civil society, and public institutions to effectively manage and transform local food environments. In collaboration with Uppsala University, Public & Science, Arbisense AB and Uppsala municipality, we seek to gain new insights into young people’s behaviors and values related to their food environments, and to develop and test methods for establishing collaboration between young people and food‑environment stakeholders. 

Using citizen‑science methods, young people will generate and interpret data about their own food settings and work with retailers and policymakers to design realistic changes. The project collaborates with local institutions, organizations, and companies to strengthen youth agency and create healthier, more equitable food environments.

The project is funded by FORTE.

I am leading a work program on codesign in Tanzania, Kenya and Burkina Faso within the EU-funded implementation science project Changemaker. The Changemaker project aims to implement and evaluate a sustainable health intervention on health, nutrition, and environmental outcomes for primary prevention of adolescent obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Changemaker project | Karolinska Institutet

 
I have recently completed two implementation projects on maternal and newborn health:
ALERT - Action Leveraging Evidence to reduce perinatal Mortality and morbidity in Sub-Saharan Africa

*QUALI-DEC - *Appropriate use of Caesarean section through QUALIty
DECision-making by women and providers Home (EN) | Quali-dec

I am the departmental director of education at the Department of Global
Public Health (GUA). I give courses on qualitative methods in health on our
master programs and supervises doctoral and master students on qualitative
research.

Course leader in Qualitative Methods within the Masters program in Public
Health Sciences.

Qualitative methods, (7, 5 ECT credits) | Karolinska Institutet

Course leader in Qualitative Reseach and Methods 2 within the two-year master program in Global Health. 

Qualitative Research and Methods 2 | Karolinska Institutet

Supervision to doctoral degree

• Johanna Berg, 2019-