Visiting address: Karolinska Institutet, Nobels väg 13, 17177 Stockholm
I am a senior researcher in public health since 2000. Since 2020, I work at Karolinska Institute, IMM. I have earlier been employed as professor at Umeå and Uppsala Universities. I am MD, with specialist exams in general practice and social medicine.
The Northern Swedish Cohort (NoSCo) - a prospective longitudinal cohort study - is the base of much of my research. The cohort consists of all pupils (n=1083) who in 1981 attended the last year of compulsory school (age 16) in all nine schools in a middle-sized municipality in Northern Sweden. At the 27-year follow-up 94.3% (n =I1010, 522 men, 488 women) of those still alive of the original cohort continued to participate. All nine school nurses and 56 form teachers in 1981 as well as all form teachers (or the supervisors for those in youth programmes) in 1983 were also part of the study. None of them refused to participate.
Until now, the cohort has been followed during 40 years with extensive questionnaires, clinical investigations and register data. The questionnaire (built on well-known and validated scales) covered the broad areas of somatic and mental health, externalising behaviours, other health behaviours, exhaustion, time of puberty, school/work environment (including the demand, control, support model), labour market history and position, education, material and psychosocial life conditions (such as financial strain, social support, life events, gender equality), spare time use etc.
All early unemployed participants (n=28) have been followed with personal interviews since autumn 1981. On average, they have been interviewed five times per person with a main focus on experiences of health promoting and health deteriorating mechanisms related to labour market position and social relations across life.
See edge://ki.se/imm/forskning-vid-imm/enheter-vid-imm/enheten-for-arbetsmedicin/ung-i-lulea-1981
A younger NoSCo, born in 1973, has been followed since 1994, the latest follow-up in 2023.
My research has a strong focus on social epidemiology, with special focus on social inequalities in health during life, theory development and health impact of labour market positions from a life-course perspective. I work with both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Academic awards
Expert of SOU 1996:133 Gender Equal Care
2005-2006 Member of the Swedish governments Scientific Working Committee
Member of the organization committee for the National Institute of Public Health
Member of WHO commission On the Social Determinants of Health
Medical Consultant for ten years at the National Institute of Public Health
2006-2009 Member of board of the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research
2009 Award winner of Görel Bohlins’ prize for gender research
Latest research grant
Funder reference:2023-00287_Forte 5000000 SEK.
Funder name (English):Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
Title (English):Can work-related exposures during life explain the increasing social gradient in cardiovascular disease?
Latest publications:
Articles
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH 2024 May 15;24(1):1315.
Hammarström A, Westerlund H, Janlert J, Virtanen P, Ziaei S, Östergren PO. How do labour market conditions explain the development of mental health over the life-course? A conceptual integration of the ecological model with life-course epidemiology in an integrative review of results from the Northern Swedish Cohort. BMC Public Health 2024 May 15;24(1):1315. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-18461-6.
ArtiCle: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;52(8):960-967
Why does youth unemployment lead to scarring of depressive symptoms in adulthood? The importance of early adulthood drinking
Hammarstrom A; Bean C; Pingel R; Janlert U; Westerlund H; Ostergren PO; Virtanen P
Article: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;52(6):678-684
Workplace gender composition and sickness absence: A register-based study from Sweden
Haukenes I; Hammarstrom A
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;24(1):1966
A life marked by early school leaving: gendered working life paths linked to health and well-being over 40 years
Hagstrom AS; Hammarstrom A
Journal article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;24(1):1315
How do labour market conditions explain the development of mental health over the life-course? a conceptual integration of the ecological model with life-course epidemiology in an integrative review of results from the Northern Swedish Cohort
Hammarstroem A; Westerlund H; Janlert U; Virtanen P; Ziaei S; Oestergren P-O
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;24(1):191
Psychosocial conditions during school-age as determinants of long-term labour market attachment: a study of the Northern Swedish Cohort from the 1980s to the 2020s
Virtanen P; Nummi T; Janlert U; Hammarstrom A
Article: FRONTIERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;12:1345034
Active labour market policies in emerging adulthood may act as a protective factor against future depressiveness: an analysis of the long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms in the Northern Swedish Cohort
Virtanen P; Nummi T; Westerlund H; Ostergren P-O; Janlert U; Hammarstrom A
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2023;23(1):637
The relationship between interpersonal violence in adulthood and mental health: a longitudinal study based on the Northern Swedish Cohort
Ziaei S; Hammarstrom A
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Article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32(5):696-702
Risk factors in adolescence as predictors of trajectories of somatic symptoms over 27 years
Berg N; Nummi T; Bean CG; Westerlund H; Virtanen P; Hammarstrom A
Article: BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. 2022;22(1):199
Methodological perspectives on the study of the health effects of unemployment - reviewing the mode of unemployment, the statistical analysis method and the role of confounding factors
Norstrom F; Hammarstrom A
Article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32(1):8-13
How does social support shape the association between depressive symptoms and labour market participation: a four-way decomposition
Veldman K; Pingel R; Hallqvist J; G. Bean C; Hammarstrom A
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;21(1):2190
What social determinants outside paid work are related to development of mental health during life? An integrative review of results from the Northern Swedish Cohort
Ziaei S; Hammarstrom A
Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;21(1):2023
The importance of having a paid job. Gendered experiences of health and ill-health in daily life among middle-aged women and men
Hammarstrom A; Lundman B; Norberg A
Article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;31(4):797-802
Poor school connectedness in adolescence and adulthood depressiveness: a longitudinal theory-driven study from the Northern Sweden Cohort
Gunnarsdottir H; Hensing G; Hammarstrom A
Article: JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE. 2021;63(7):588-593
Locked in Permanent Employment-Longitudinal Associations With Depressive and Functional Somatic Symptoms
Virtanen P; Hammarstrom A; Janlert U
Article: ADDICTION RESEARCH & THEORY. 2020;28(6):501-509
The relevance of macroeconomic conditions on concurrent and subsequent alcohol use - results from two Northern Swedish cohorts
Berg N; Virtanen P; Bean CG; Lintonen T; Nummi T; Hammarstrom A
Article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2020;30(2):357-363
The contribution of drinking culture at comprehensive school to heavy episodic drinking from adolescence to midlife
Berg N; Virtanen M; Lintonen T; Hammarstrom A