Josefin Wångdahl

Josefin Wångdahl

Assistant Professor | Docent
Telephone: +46852483619
Visiting address: Tomtebodavägen 18 A, 17177 Stockholm
Postal address: H1 Neurobiologi, vårdvetenskap och samhälle, H1 ARC Socialgerontologi Lennartsson, 171 77 Stockholm
Part of:

About me

  • I am Associate Professor in Public Health. My main area of interest is health literacy from a public health perspective. I have mainly carried out research that focused on health literacy and health promotion work linked to newly arrived migrants with a refugee background. What drives me is to produce and spread knowledge about how to reduce inequality in health and healthcare.

    Part-time I am doing research in Carin Lennartsson's group in the Social Gerontology Sector at the Aging Research Center (ARC), Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm University on health literacy among older adults in the Forte financed project "Health literacy among older adults: Exploring older people´s prerequisites for understanding health information and making informed health choices" together with Janne Agerholm and others. We partly use data from the Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD). I also work with Lena Dahlberg and others, within the FORTE-funded program "Aging, loneliness and mental health: understanding the connections and enabling change" (REALM), in which I lead working package 3. Based on interviews with care staff and previous research we will develop and pilot test a training program for care professionals on loneliness and mental health. In addition, I am involved in a project in the Västra Götaland region that aims to improve the capacity of health and dental professionals to promote and take into account health literacy in their work. So far, a page on health literacy has been published on The healthcare provider website and in 2025 an online training on health literacy will be developed. Part-time I am teaching at the Division of Nursing, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. I mainly teach about Health Literacy, Public Health, Health Promotion and Research Methods. 

    I am Sweden’s research representative in the Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational Health Literacy of WHO Europe (M-POHL) in which I am involved in the working group on mental health literacy and the M-POHLs project on organisational health literacy in primary care. In year 2024 we will translate M-POHLs instrument for assessing organisational health literacy in primacy care to Swedish and pilot test it a Swedish context.  Further, I am co-founder of the Swedish webpage on Health literacy and the Swedish Health Literacy Network. I do also often have external assignments regarding health literacy as an expert, trainer and lecturer outside Karolinska Institutet.

    Previously I have project lead and evaluated several EU funded research projects that focused on health-promoting activities for migrants 
    with refugee backgrounds. For example the project MILSA educational platform for civic- and health communicators and MILSA psychosocialhealth project, and the Erasmus+ project Health4Health Literacy in which a competence profile, an xMOOC course and a handbook have been developed. The material is targeting people who want to improve their own or others knowledge on health literacy and dementia and how to work with health literacy to improve communication with older peopled with dementia and their relatives. I have also worked with translations of several health literacy instruments into Swedish and several languages that many migrants in Sweden speak, and studied how valid they are in a Swedish context. At the moment I am working with translation and validation of HLS19-Q12 aiming to measure health literacy on individual level and the OHL-PHC tool which aims to assess health literacy on organisational level within the primary care. Information about health literacy instruments in Swedish can be found on the Swedish webpage on Health Literacy.

Research

  • Public health, health promotion, health literacy, health communication, migration, health inequalities, pedagogy, research methodology.

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 July 2023 - 30 June 2029
    Research problem and specific questionsLoneliness is associated with poor health and mortality, but the causal relationships between loneliness, mental health and care use are not well understood, and there is a lack of evidence-based methods for care professionals to recognise and respond to loneliness. This programme takes a holistic perspective on loneliness in older adults, how loneliness is understood and experienced, and its relationship with mental health. Our work packages (WPs) will address research gaps to support evidence-based approaches to identify, assess and address to loneliness in practice by:examining inequalities in risk factors and consequences of loneliness, and causal associations between loneliness, mental health and careexploring subjective experiences of loneliness and mental health from a life-course perspectivedeveloping an instrument to assess loneliness in practicecreating a loneliness literacy training programme for care professionalsenhancing care professionals’ response to lonelinessData and methodIn WP1, panel studies will be combined with register data to examine inequalities in loneliness and its causal associations with mental health and care use. In WP2, older adults’ experiences of loneliness and mental health will be explored in interviews, which will also support the development of an instrument to assess loneliness. In WP3, researchers and care professionals will co-design a loneliness literacy training programme to improve care professionals’ competencies to address loneliness. WP4 integrates research across WPs, embeds it in practice and promotes dissemination of findings. Workshops with stakeholders will explore how to enhance care professionals’ response to loneliness.Relevance and utilisationOur research will advance the understanding of risk factors and avoidable consequences of loneliness, produce the first instrument for assessing loneliness validated for use with older adults in Swedish care practice, and develop a unique loneliness literacy programme for care professionals. Close collaboration with stakeholders will ensure our findings can support social care and civil society in addressing loneliness and mitigate its negative outcomes.Plan for project realisationThe programme will be realised by an experienced multidisciplinary team with expertise in loneliness, mental health, gender and socioeconomic inequality, health literacy and care in old age. Collaboration with pensioner and mental health organisations and authorities ensures representation of older adults and the programme’s relevance and feasibility for practice. Scientific quality is supported by an international academic reference group. There will be thorough dissemination to academic, policy and practice communities.A budget of SEK 23.8 million includes staff costs (SEK 15.1 million)
    running costs (e.g., meetings, fieldwork, dissemination, administration, IT, offices
    SEK 4.4 million)
    and indirect costs (SEK 4.3 million).
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2023 - 31 December 2025
    Research problems: The Swedish healthcare system has become very specialised and is often experienced as fragmented and lacking coordination between caregivers. Advanced age is associated with multi-morbidity, which usually requires care from several different caregivers. This makes older people vulnerable to fragmentated care and lack of care coordination. Health literacy (HL) is an essential component of an individual’s ability to gain access to, understand and use information to improve and maintain good health and is an important prerequisite for managing health and care needs. Therefore, knowledge on older people’s HL is vital to efficiently and equitably meet the care needs of the rapidly aging population.Specific questions: The project aim is to gain knowledge on HL in the older population. In this project we will assess to what degree the older population in Sweden is health literate, identify groups that might face challenges due to inadequate HL and explore what older people experience as prerequisites for understanding health information and managing their health and care needs as well as communicate with caregivers.Data and Methods: This project combines both qualitative and quantitative data. The Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD), linked with register data on healthcare utilisation will allow for measuring the level of health literacy in a nationally representative sample of the Swedish population aged 77 years and over. Semi-structured interviews with older people will be performed to deepen the understanding of contextual barriers and facilitators, and individual internal and external resources to make informed decisions about their health and care needs. Plan for project realisation: The collection of SWEOLD data is in progress and preliminary analyses on a sub-sample have been performed. Information about HL, life situation, health, care utilisation, physical and cognitive ability and social support from relatives are being collected. The project group has extensive knowledge about older adults, health literacy, the health and social care system as well as relevant research methodology, both qualitative and quantitative.Relevance: Knowledge on HL among the older population can be used to tailor communication and directing support to vulnerable groups in order to achieve an efficient and equitable health and social care system, as well as supporting older people in health crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employments

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, 2022-2026

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2025
  • PhD, Social medicine, Health literacy among newly arrived refugees in Sweden and implications for health and healthcare., Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, 2018
  • Degree Of Master Of Medical Science 120 Credits, Karolinska Institutet, 2011

News from KI

Events from KI