Global health

Global Health Group

The Global Health Group focuses on producing and synthesizing scientific evidence that can be used to promote maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health globally, with a special emphasis on reduction of worldwide health disparities.

Background & Aims:

Despite major health improvements in the past decades, some 25% of all children in the world are still born too early or small, roughly the same proportion suffers from some form of malnutrition or doesn’t reach their developmental potential during childhood and there are more than 5 million child deaths and over 300,000 maternal deaths each year. The Global Health Group combines multiple research tools to produce knowledge on the causes and consequences of ill health and on preventive and curative interventions to promote health in different contexts.

People:

The Global health Group consists of approximately 10 academic staff members, 3 adjunct professors, 3 other adjunct academics, 10-15 PhD students, and occasional medical and other master’s students doing their under-graduate thesis. The adjunct members have their main positions elsewhere, mostly outside Finland and many of the PhD-students also come from collaborating institutions abroad. The group members have expertise in the fields of medicine, global health, epidemiology, biostatistics, molecular biology, nutrition, economics, health policy, and anthropology.

Research themes:

-Identification of the causes and consequences of fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, and childhood undernutrition and growth failure in low-income settings.
-Development of novel interventions to promote healthy fetal and child growth in low-income settings and assessment of their efficacy, acceptability, and feasibility.
-Development of improved methods to assess healthy growth and development in low-income settings

Network:

The Global Health Group cooperates with research and training institutions in Finland and elsewhere. In 20201, the group had active collaborations with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (Bangladesh), National Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland), Nutriset Ltd (France), Society of Applied Science (India), Aga Khan University (Kenya and Pakistan), Muhimbili Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (Malawi), CVD-Mali (Mali), University of Health and Allied Sciences (Tanzania), University College London (UK), UC Davis (USA), and Tro Da Ltd (Wales). Some of the group members interact frequently with the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Aging at the World Health Organization, Geneva.

Learn more about the Global Health Group.

Contact:

Group leader Per Ashorn, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics
Tampere University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology
per.ashorn@tuni.fi
+358 40 7280354
ARVO D519