SFO-V Fellows

Who am I?

I am an occupational therapist and an assistant professor at the division of occupational therapy, NVS. I am leading the research projects Rethinking shared spaces in residential care facilities and Ett äldreboende att längta till [A nursing home to long for]. The research projects are carried out in close collaboration with the Living Lab Stureby in Stockholm City Council and financed by FORTE, the Family Kamprad Foundation and the Doctoral School in Health Care Sciences.

My main research interest is the everyday life for older people who is living in nursing homes or at home with cognitive impairments or dementia. The research I am doing is multidisciplinary and has three main paths: 1) The living environment in nursing homes with focus on the shared spaces. 2) Influence in everyday activities for persons who live in nursing homes. 3) Learning and knowledge development in nursing homes and home care organizations.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My research is within the core area of co-creation. In the research projects I am leading we work together in co-creations processes with nursing home residents, relatives/friends and staff. By using participatory action research methods we create new knowledge but also create change in the context where the research is conducted.

We are continuously developing, refining and adapting methods for involving nursing home residents, relatives/friends and staff in co-creating processes.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

Being a SFO-V Fellow gives me the opportunity to develop my research ideas but also to develop my skills as a research leader. In the future I will continue to develop my research within the paths described above and I will further explore the possibilities of doing research in the intercept between care sciences and art/design. I hope to accomplish a stable ground for a research environment where knowledge that is needed to develop living environments and care for people with cognitive impairments or dementia is created.

The goal would be to develp knowledge that can be used to enable persons with cognitive impairments or dementia to live a life that they want, and to be included as citizens in society, based on thir own terms.

Who am I?

I am a SFO-V Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Clinical exercise physiologist, specializing in exercise for people with cancer. I have moved from Brisbane, Australia, which is also where I completed my PhD on the topic of exercise for the musculoskeletal health of men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy.

I now work in Yvonne Wengstrom’s Research group where we focus on trying to understand the effects exercise can have for the physiological and psychosocial health of people with cancer- from the cellular level to real-world implementation studies.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My/our research within the OptiTrain exercise RCT aims to investigate the physiological, psychosocial and behavioral effects of a 16 week exercise program for women with cancer undergoing treatment. We are now looking at the 1 and 2-year follow-up data to look at if the original effects are sustained and if the women are still physically active in the absence of supervised exercise sessions.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

We are now translating what we have learnt from the original OptiTrain RCT and in joint partnership with an EU collaboration have developed a new RCT of exercise for people with advanced cancer. Additionally, we are developing an implementation study that aims to provide cancer survivors of any cancer type with access to personalised exercise medicine using evidence based practice, delivered in the community by exercise specialists.

My focus has always been about translating what we know in the research world into the clinics and community and so the goals of SFO-V align with this really well. This fellowship has given myself and the group time to sit and do justice to the masses of data RCTs produce. It has also allowed me time to write a great number of grant applications and study protocols, which are essential to moving the research further.

Who am I?

I have a Master degree in nutrition with a focus on public health and in 2015 I earned my PhD in nutritional epidemiology from Karolinska Institutet. My research focuses on how lifestyle factors affects our health, primarily physical activity, body composition and diet. After defending my PhD, I did a postdoc at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where I studies patterns of physical activity. I am currently an assistant professor at the Clinical Epidemiology Division, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

The main focus of my research is lifestyle and how new technology (eHealth/mHealth) can be used to support a healthy lifestyle. My current research is strongly related to the four core areas of SFO-V. I am currently working on two randomized trials within primary care where we have developed a digital care plan to support healthy lifestyle habits among patients with diabetes type 2.

The digital platform is based on previous research in our group where we investigated what type of support that patients and caregivers need (Co-creation and eHealth). The digital platform is generic and aims to support self-care within different patient groups (self-management) where life habits are important, e.g. among patients with type 2 diabetes. Supporting the patient in implementing and maintaining good living habits can have major effects on biological markers (bio-behavioral).

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

In the future, I think it is important to continue to work close to both patients and caregivers to create an impact of my research among the actual users. The aim is to develop something that can be implemented in the healthcare system and have an impact on health among patients. SFO-V fills an important function for bridging research into practice in the work of patients and caregivers.

The SFO-V fellowship has given me a fantastic opportunity to develop my own line of research during two years.

Who am I?

I have a PhD in Physiotherapy and defended my thesis in 2015. The topic of my PhD project was physical activity and health related quality of life in older adults with osteoporosis. I have a clinical background as a physiotherapist in the primary healthcare and I have also worked with the implementation of Physical activity on prescription (FaR) in the Stockholm County.

My research mainly focuses on associations between health and objectively assessed physical activity and sedentary behavior using accelerometry. I have been involved in randomized controlled studies and epidemiology studies, as well as qualitative studies. Currently I have a postdoc position at Aging Research Center as a SFO-V fellow.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My research project has a biobehavioral approach and aims to investigate objectively assessed physical activity and sedentary behavior and cognitive function in over 600 older men and women, participating in the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K).

Physical activity and sedentary behavior are complex health behaviors important for healthy aging, and the results can provide evidence to inform preventive health care interventions using eHealth, or self-management recommendations for older adults.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

The postdoctoral grant I have received as a SFO-V fellow is very important, allowing me to develop my future line of research. In my postdoc project I am processing and organizing data from the SNAC-K study assessments using the accelerometer activPAL. This new database will make it possible to study the longitudinal associations for a number of outcomes in relation to physical activity and sedentary behavior in the future, which will help understand the aging process.

I believe that the research that I am conducting as a SFO-V fellow will be important both for my own research career and for advancing the health care science.

Who am I?

I currently work as an assistant professor at Division of Innovative Care Research, and Department of LIME, KI. As a nurse and researcher, I have worked with, and for, people close to death for almost 30 years. My PhD research reinforced my conviction that patients’ and families’ experiential knowledge of their situation and support needs had to be considered and combined with existing professional evidence-based knowledge as a basis for care interventions also at the organizational level.

I am driven by the idea that persons living close to death have knowledge and ideas that needs to be asked for, valued, and used, in processes that aim to improve end-of-life care.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My research is focused on the end of life (EoL) and uses innovative participatory approaches to capitalize on experiential knowledge from the perspective of patients, family and staff to improve communication, wellbeing and the quality of care at EoL. Co-creation is intrinsic to the goal, aim, research questions, methods and deliverables in my research.

We apply now participatory action research in residential care homes, chosen for varied conditions for EoL care but with readiness to participate, on all organizational levels. We use Knowledge Exchange, a process which brings together stakeholders with different expertise to exchange experiences and ideas, which is in line with transformative learning in health care.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

Continuing my research in the area of EoL from a public health-based perspective, I want to focus on facilitating equal quality in EoL care, independent of diagnosis and place of death. By combining knowledge generation with implementation into practice, the aim is promote the development of new methods to actualize person-centered care.

As a SFO-V Fellow I have the opportunity to work on my intention to contribute to, and influence, the development of health care science at KI, and continue my efforts to lessen gaps between research, education and practice. Further, by using new ways of collaborating across disciplines, perspectives and interests in the co-creation of knowledge, services and processes, I want to contribute to improvements of EoL care.

Who am I?

I am a licensed dietitian with a PhD in nutrition from Linköping University which he defended in 2015. He did his postdoc in the PROFITH group at University of Granada which specializes in physical activity and fitness.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition at Karolinska Institutet.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My main research areas are nutrition and physical activity and especially how these health behaviors can be promoted through mobile health (mHealth) applications. Our research group (the IMPACT group) have previously conducted a randomized controlled trial investigating whether a mobile app targeting parents can promote healthy diet and physical activity behaviors in their 4-year-old children.

Currently, we are evaluating whether novel mHealth applications can promote healthy weight gain, diet and physical activity during pregnancy (HealthyMoms trial) and promote active commuting in adults (SCAMPI trial).

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

In the future, I will continue to develop mHealth applications that may have a positive impact on clinical practice. With new collaborations gained during my time as a SFO-V Fellow, I hope to include other important health behaviors (such as alcohol, tobacco habits) in my future research.

The value of the SFO-V Fellowship cannot be understated. Firstly, it provides 2 years funding to develop and execute research ideas with potential high societal value. This is especially important since the postdoc period is a very crucial period in academia. Secondly, the SFO-V Fellowship has significantly increased my network with many competent researchers in many different areas, which is key for future successful multidisciplinary collaboration.

Who am I?

I was born and raised in Germany and received my degree in midwifery from the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University of Bonn, Germany in 1996. Since 1999 I live in Stockholm, Sweden, where I furthered my practical and theoretical skills as a midwife.

Currently, I am an assistant professor at the Department of Women's and Children's Health at KI. As a clinical midwife, I have worked at ante-, labour- and postnatal wards. As a lecturer, I have been working at the Midwifery programme at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at KI, where I have been teaching midwifery students and supervising master students. Focus has been on "Internationalisation of the curriculum" and development of international and online-based course "Intercultural perspectives on reproductive health" for midwifery students in the Netherlands, Malawi and Sweden.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

My research interests are various, but all of my research includes bio-behavioural aspects of breastfeeding. For my thesis (2009), I have studied the effects of different labor ward routines, including pain relief by epidural analgesia and augmentation of labor through intrapartum oxytocin administration on mothering and breastfeeding and its related hormones.

For my post-doctoral studies at the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto (2012/2013), I worked with Professor Alison Fleming on a Canadian longitudinal, prospective and multi-center cohort study entitled “Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment (MAVAN)”, a project designed to understand the pre- and postnatal influences on maternal health and behavior and child social-emotional and cognitive development, focusing on hormonal, genetic and environmental influences. My main focus in the MAVAN was to study birthing and breastfeeding.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

Through the SFO-V fellowship, I am given the possibility to further and solely focus on my research. In an interdisciplinary and international team we are currently conducting the “Immediate Parent Infant Skin-to-Skin Contact Study” (IPISTOSS), which is a large, randomized controlled trial with a parallel, two-arm, multicentre design with multilevel measurements.

The overall aim of this study is to examine whether the intervention of immediate skin-to-skin contact between parent and their very premature infant after birth is more effective than conventional care in incubators in enhancing infant physiological stabilization and health, socio-emotional development, breastfeeding rates and parent-infant interaction over the first two years postpartum.

Who am I?

I am Assistant Professor in Health Care Sciences, in the area of Health Care Organization and Management, at the Medical Management Center (MMC) at KI. My career journey started with the doctoral studies at MMC, after which I did a post-doc at Bocconi University in Italy. Thereafter I returned to Karolinska Institutet and established a the Clinical Management Research Group together with Carl Savage.

My expertise lies in the analysis of complex management interventions and the use of mixed methods to understand what works, for whom, under what circumstances, and how. I have taught extensively at the undergraduate, graduate and executive levels. My teaching portfolio includes courses in Healthcare Management, Quality and Operations Management in Healthcare.

My drive is to continually develop and learn, and to make use of my research and pedagogical expertise to contribute to the improvement of health care organizations and systems.

My research related to SFO-V core areas

In my research I seek to understand how the adoption of innovative management practices, such as lean and value based health care, can influence the design, management, and improvement of clinical operations and health care organizations. Managers struggle to make management methods penetrate and to scale-up in organizations. The challenges are several and include the limited time for the cultural and organizational infrastructure to mature, as well as the inability to adapt to the specific context.

Thus in my research I focus not only on how management innovations influence the design of clinical operations and organizations, but also on how these methods interact with the health care context, and how this interaction can be led to facilitate continual learning. One example of this is my current research on value-based health care (VBHC) that aims to understand how VBHC is adopted by and adapted to the health care context.

The future of my research and the value of the SFO-V Fellowship

The Clinical Management Research Group I co-lead strives to achieve long-term collaborations with provider and purchaser organizations in order to facilitate the learning needed to rip the benefits of innovative management practices, and thereby bridge the medical management know-do gap.

The projects we are engaged in span the range of organizational inquiry, at the macro (e.g. the role of reimbursement models in value creation), meso (e.g. downsizing, business model innovation, process re-design), and micro levels (e.g. leadership development). The knowledge gained at all these levels can help address some of the shortcomings shared by health care systems and organizations in the complex interplay that arises when the needs of patients, professionals, managers, and policy makers meet.