PopHel Newsletter: October 2025 - March 2026

This newsletter shares our research activities at the Helsinki Institute for Demography and Population Health (PopHel).

To receive our newsletter, which we send out twice a year, subscribe to our mailing list by sending an email to . Subscribers of our mailing list will also receive information on upcoming public talks and open positions at PopHel. You can also follow our activities on Blue Sky  or on . 

​​​A few highlights: it was a busy season for PhD defences, with altogether five colleagues receiving their degrees. In November 2025, our colleagues from Rostock joined us for two intense days of slideshows at the annual  meeting, with the strongest staying for some more at the  in the following week. The turn of the year was marked by bidding farewell to  that had been housing us at Unioninkatu 33 for nearly three years. The moving process might be best summarised as long enough to say goodbye properly, many times. In February, PopHel finally moved into new premises at Snellmaninkatu 12, despite the admirable resistance of a few devotees of U33. Most of our plants and people survived the move, but the adaptation period is still ongoing.

PopHel Talks – online seminar

PopHel Talks, our online seminar series is open to all. In these talks, researchers at PopHel, current visiting researchers, or guest speakers will give 30-minutes presentations (+15-minute discussion) on their current research. Please, feel free to share our invitation to PopHel talks with colleagues who may be interested. 

The next presentation will be on the 13th of April 2026 at 14:00 Eastern European Time by Joan Damiens on “Housing pathways and mental health across the life course: evidence from Finnish registers”. Read more .  

Up to date information on upcoming talks can be found on our . Please register  for a Zoom link to the seminar.  

New projects, awards, graduations, nominations 

Ulla Suulamo successfully defended her PhD thesis “”at the University of Helsinki in October 2025.

Lotta Lintunen successfully defended her PhD thesis “” at the European University Institute in November 2025.

Donata Stonkute successfully defended her PhD thesis  at the University of Helsinki in January 2026.

Maria Ponkilainen successfully defended her PhD thesis   at the University of Helsinki in March 2026.

Xu Zong successfully defended his PhD thesis  at the University of Helsinki in March 2026.

Sini Laakso received the  for a distinguished thesis in the field of alcohol or drug research. 

Piret Avila’s, Susanna Fagerholm’s, Elina Einiö’s, Elina Numminen’s, Eliisa Kekäläinen’s, and Taru Tukiainen’s 3-year project “Sex differences in immunity (SEXDIM)”, funded by interdisciplinary research openings (IROs), will start in early 2026. 

Xu Zong's short-term project “Childhood adversity and late-life cognitive health: the mediating role of health behaviors in the Finnish Twin Cohort Study" funded by Juho Vainio Foundation will start in Spring 2026.

Eugenio Paglino’s one-year project “Leveraging Nordic Register Data to Uncover the Impact of International Migration on Health and Mortality Trends in Finland and other Nordic Countries” funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation will start in April 2026.

Minna Ylinen’s ongoing doctoral thesis “Socioeconomic determinants of non-reporting behavior after crime victimization in Finland” received a two-year grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. 

Olivia McEvoy and Joan Damien’s new project with University of Queensland (AU) commences, with the preliminary title “the transition to parenthood, number of children, and long-term gender income disparities” with funding from the FIRE Visiting Fellow Programme for International Collaboration on Register- Based Research. 

Olivia McEvoy awarded the Erasmus+ Teacher Exchange Grant to visit Trinity College Dublin (IRE) to give two lectures in Social Theory, with specific focus on social capital, entitled “Re-visiting Coleman’s Boat.” 

Newcomers 

Stephanie Zellers: is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Meilahti. She will be working in PopHel for the next year on grant-funded research. Her projects focus on quasi-experimental analyses of job loss and its effects on physical and mental health. She uses both twin and family questionnaire data alongside population register information. Contact:

Min Zhu: began her postdoctoral position on March 1, 2026, and will work on the MigScene project over the next three years. Her research focuses on migrants’ employment, labour market participation, family formation, and mobility trajectories across migrant generations, socioeconomic groups, regional contexts, childhood circumstances, among other factors. Contact:

Visiting researchers at PopHel 

  • Michael Berger (April 2025–March 2026), from Medical University of Vienna; Erwin-Schrödinger fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund, Grant ID: 10.55776/J4904
  • Suri Li (June 2026), from Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland and the Centre of Excellence for Children & Families over the Life Course, Australia:FIRE Visiting Fellow Programme for International Collaboration on Register-Based Research. Plus, short visit: Prof. Janeen Baxter, Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course and Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow in the Institute for Social Science Research.
  • Heini Väisänen (December) from Ined - Institut national d'études démographiques, France
  • Hyunjoon Park and Abby Lim (October 2025) from the University of Pennsylvania

PopHel research visits 

  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist visits the Stockholm University Sociology Unit in Sweden May 2026 to work on health and family formation with Professor Kieron Barclay.
  • Lauren Bishop visited the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany, in February 2026 to work on sibling complexity, mental health, and education with Philipp Dierker as part of the MaxHel Center collaboration.
  • Eugenio Paglino visited the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany in January-February 2026 to work on demographic decomposition techniques with Alyson Van Raalte (MPIDR) and Wen Su (Oxford University).
  • Pekka Martikainen visited INED to work on social inequalities in health with Aline Désesquelles and Emilie Counil.
  • Pekka Martikainen visited UCL and LSE  to work on social inequalities in health with Alice Goisis, Tim Morris and Michael Murphy.  

Conferences, Workshops and Meetings 

Upcoming 

BIOSFER Synergy Camp, Sandbjerg Estate, Denmark, 20–23 April 2026 

  • Julia Hellstrand “Potential fertility gains from reducing IVF waiting times amid ongoing fertility postponement: A simulation study” (oral)
  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist: Family background and children’s mental health disorders (oral)“INVEST Conference 2026, Building equal societies: from scientific findings to societal transformation, Turku, Finland, 6-8 May 2026
  • Julia Hellstrand “Immigrant mobility and labor-market integration across Finland’s rural, urban, and Swedish-speaking regions” (oral)

Population Association of America, St. Louis, Missouri, United States, 6-9 May 2026

  • Eugenio Paglino “Longer and Healthier Lives: Health and Mortality Trajectories of International Immigrants and Native-Born Residents in Finland” (oral)
  • Eugenio Paglino “The Foreign-Born Population and State-Level Life Expectancy over the Last Thirty Years” (oral)
  • Eugenio Paglino “GLP-1 Receptor Agonists and Life Expectancy in the United States” (oral)

The International Sociological Association’s RC28 Social Stratification, Spring Meeting:  Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain. 20-22nd May, 2026. 

  • Olivia McEvoy “Migrant composition of schools and educational outcomes: a multi-level analysis of the Finnish case” (oral). 

European Population Conference, Bologna, 3-6 June 2026

  • Lotta Lintunen “Home to health: A sibling correlation approach to family background and mediating effects on early adulthood mental health” (oral)
  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist “From early to fewer first births: ADHD and family formation among young adults” (oral)
  • Lauren Bishop “Accumulation of sibling complexity and mental health and education among adolescents” (oral)
  • Julia Hellstrand “Potential fertility gains from reducing IVF waiting times amid ongoing fertility postponement: A simulation study” (poster)
  • Elina Einiö "Marital dissolution and mental health: A study of divorcing women of same-sex and different-sex couples” (poster)
  • Liina Junna “Sibling Complexity and Mental Health Outcomes in Late Adolescence – Evidence from Finnish Birth Cohorts" (poster)
  • Lotta Volotinen “Age at attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis and educational outcomes by parental education” (oral)
  • Eugenio Paglino “” (oral)
  • Moritz Oberndorfer “Social Inequalities in Birthweight in Times of Crisis. A Population-Level Analysis of Social Inequalities in Birthweight before and during Covid-19 Pandemic Using Data from 11 Countries.” (oral presentation)
  • Anna Leuwer “Trends and social inequalities in alcohol related harm – a birth cohort comparison of Finnish adolescents born between 1979 and 2004".(oral)
  • Lauren Bishop “Accumulation of sibling complexity and mental health and education among adolescents” (oral)
  • Liina Junna “Sibling Complexity and Mental Health Outcomes in Late Adolescence – Evidence from Finnish Birth Cohorts" (oral)

Microsimulation Methods in Demography: Fertility Applications, Rostock, Germany, 11-17 June 2026 (Instructors: Daniel Ciganda, Henrik Schubert, Julia Hellstrand)

Family Diversity & Health Conference 2026: The Potential of Register-Based Research in Germany and Europe, Berlin, Germany, 28-29 June 2026

  • Lauren Bishop “Accumulation of sibling complexity and mental health and education among adolescents” (oral)
  • Liina Junna “Sibling Complexity and Mental Health Outcomes in Late Adolescence – Evidence from Finnish Birth Cohorts" (oral)

Society for Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies, Annual International Conference, Bruxelles, Belgium, 29 Jun – 1 Jul 2026

  • Niina Metsä-Simola “Neurodevelopmental disorders across the life course: social inequalities and consequences” (symposium)

European Society of Health and Medical Sociology, Biennial Conference, Hamburg, Germany, 19-21 August 2026

  • Eevi Haverinen “Spatial and socioeconomic variation in neurodevelopmental diagnoses: a multilevel Finnish population study" (oral)
  • Niina Metsä-Simola “From pre-pregnancy to the early school years: maternal mental health and child’s ADHD in Germany and the UK” (oral)

  • Niina Metsä-Simola “Heterogeneity in educational outcomes following ADHD: a full population register-study in Finland” (oral)

     

Past events 

 Nordic AMR Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 4–6 March 2026

  • Niina Metsä-Simola “The antimicrobial resistance transition: Demographic transition stage and structural inequalities as predictors of country-level antimicrobial resistance” (oral)

European Public Health Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 11–14 November 2025 

  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist “From early to fewer first births: ADHD and family formation among young adults" (poster)
  • Moritz Oberndorfer “Social inequalities in birthweight in times of crisis. A cross-country analysis of social inequalities in birthweight before and during COVID-19 pandemic” (poster)
  • Alvaro Obeso “Smoking and BMI change association across adulthood: pooled analysis of 13 longitudinal twin cohorts” (poster)
  • Niina Metsä-Simola “Macro-level social determinants of antimicrobial resistance: Evidence from 94 countries” (oral)
  • Niina Metsä-Simola “Heterogeneity in educational outcomes following ADHD: a full population register-study in Finland” (poster)
  • Niina Metsä-Simola “Relative age effect in the probability of ADHD diagnosis in Finland: emergence at school entry” (poster)
  • Lotta Volotinen “Age at ADHD diagnosis and educational outcomes: a register-study of Finnish 1990-1999 birth cohorts” (oral)
  • Lasse Tarkiainen "Coevolution of education and income inequalities in mortality in Finland and Sweden” (poster)
  • Kaarina Korhonen: “Who cares? Demography of the working age population affected by parents with dementia” (poster)
  • Elina Einiö “Marital breakup and victimization of women who divorce men with alcohol issues” (poster)

MaxHel Center research seminar with the cities of Helsinki, Espoo & Vantaa, 24 October 2025

  • Eugenio Paglino: The impact of international and internal migration on health and mortality in the Helsinki metropolitan area
  • Lauren Bishop: Accumulation of childhood adversities, parental socioeconomic position, and mental health treatment: A Finnish birth cohort study
  • Kaarina Korhonen: Who cares? Demography of the working-age population affected by parents with dementia
  • Xu Zong: Application of machine learning in research on social inequalities in population health among older adults - a scoping review
     

DEMOGRAPHY Talks 3.2.2026 (webinaari): Muistisairaiden määrä lisääntyy – mihin hoivamme ja voimamme riittävät? 

  • Kaarina Korhonen: Muistisairaat ja ympärivuorokautisen hoivan käyttö tulevina vuosina

PopHel research in the media 

In English 

  • Julia Hellstrand: Euronews:
  • Xu Zong, Karri Silventoinen, and Pekka Martikainen’s research work was featured by , , , and , highlighting their findings on the heterogeneous associations between early-life religious upbringing and health in later life.
  • Xu Zong's research work was featured by , , , : Childhood exposure to air pollution linked to poorer cognitive performance in later life.
  • Xu Zong’s research work was featured by   Expanding high-speed rail systems provides unexpected cognitive benefits for aging populations

In Finnish

  • Hannu Lahtinen: .
  • Hannu Lahtinen's research work was featured in Helsingin Sanomat: 
  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist: . Maaseudun tulevaisuus.
  • Sanna Kailaheimo-Björkqvist: . Maaseudun tulevaisuus.
  • Xu Zong, Karri Silventoinen, and Pekka Martikainen’s research work was featured by , , , and ,highlighting their findings on the heterogeneous associations between early-life religious upbringing and health in later life.
  • Kaarina Korhonen: . Lääkärilehti 22.1.2026
  • Xu Zong's research work was featured by  , , and : Nopeat junayhteydet voivat edistää ihmisen kognitiivista terveyttä.
  • Ulla Suulamo’s research was featured in Ilta-Sanomat: 

Other

  • Moritz Oberndorfer: News articles about work on how the socioeconomic composition of births changed during the COVID-19 pandemic 

    In Austrian media: , , (German language)

    In Danish media: Via (Danish language)

Publications 01/10/2025-31/03/2026

Beck, K.C., Hellstrand, J. & Myrskylä, M. (2026) More Education and Fewer Children? The Contribution of Educational Enrollment and Attainment to the Fertility Decline in Norway. Demography (2026) 63 (1): 323–349. 

Boderie, N. W., Van Raalte, A., V. Been, J., Bopp, M., Bronnum-Hansen, H., Deboosere, P., Eikemo, T. A., Kalediene, R., Leinsalu, M., Long, D., Martikainen, P., Ostergren, O. M., Rodriguez-Sanz, M., van Lenthe, F. J., & Nusselder, W. J. (2025). Educational inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality in Europe: Understanding trends between 2000 and 2020. Public Health, 250, Article 106058. 

Cederström, A., Korhonen, K., Martikainen, P., & Östergren, O. M. (2026). Using Pension Payments Abroad to Examine Post-retirement Migration and Health among Finnish Migrants in Sweden. Journal of Migration and Health, 100411.

Cheesman R., Anapaz V., van Alten S., Abdellaoui A., Porneso R., Ebeltoft J., Ayorech Z., Demange P., Eilertsen E., Fauske A., Havdahl A., Lahtinen H., Lyngstad T., Qin Q., Ganna A., Ystrom E. & FinnGen. (2025) Genetic associations with educational fields in >460,000 individuals. Nature Genetics 57, 2997–3006.  

Cisotto, E., Moretti, M., Silan, M., Damiens, J., Belloni, P., Korhonen, K., & Martikainen, P. (2026). Mapping Social Health and Dementia Risk: A Register-Based Study of Older Adults in Finland. Social Science & Medicine, 119154. 

Damiens, J. J., Schnor, C., & Willaert, D. (2025). Moving out and moving on: The impact of mobility in a context of union dissolution on antidepressant intake in Belgium. Journal of Health and Social Sciences, 10(3), 327-356. 

Damiens, J., Berger, M., Junna, L., & Martikainen, P. (2026). Mortgage affordability and mental healthcare use: Evidence from Finnish population registers. Social Science & Medicine, 118924. 

Einiö, E., & Ponkilainen, M. (2025). Gendered housing consequences of divorce: An analysis of marital dyads from different-sex and female same-sex couples. Genus, 81(1), 38. 

Hiilamo, A., Metsä-Simola, N., Dierker, P., Martikainen, P., & Myrskyla, M. (2026). Heterogenous long-term health and social outcomes of type 1 diabetes - A full population 30-year observational cohort study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 195(1), 117-125. Artikkeli kwaf028. 

Janssen, F., Martikainen, P. T., Zengarini, N., Sizer, A., & Kunst, A. E. (2025). The combined impact of smoking, alcohol, and obesity on past trends in educational inequalities in life expectancy in England and Wales, Finland, and Italy, 1990–2017. European Journal of Public Health, Article ckaf181.

Kailaheimo-Björkqvist, S., Nisén, J., Metsä-Simola, N., Martikainen, P. & Myrskylä, M. (2026) Linking mental health disorders to childlessness: The roles of disorder type and partnership. Journal of Family Research.  

Korhonen, K., Einiö, E., & Martikainen, P. (2026). The association of number and geographic proximity of children with care home use before all-cause and dementia deaths: a register-based study of Finnish older adults. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 81(2), gbaf250.  

Lahtinen H., Ganna A., Kaprio J., Korhonen K., Lombardi S., Silventoinen K. & Martikainen P. (2026). Heterogeneous associations of polygenic indices of 35 traits with mortality: a register-linked population-based follow-up study. eLife 14:RP107496. 

Lahtinen H., Yang I., Tarkiainen L. & Martikainen P. (2026) Voting is a stronger determinant of mortality than education: A full-electorate analysis of Finnish 1999 parliamentary elections with 21-year follow-up. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 80, 69-72. 

Lam, A., Keenan, K., Kulu, H., & Myrskyla, M. (2026). Working longer despite poorer health? Inequalities in healthy and unhealthy working life expectancies in South Korea. Population Studies.

Lam, A., Keenan, K., Myrskylä, M., & Kulu, H. (2025). Disease accumulation across birth cohorts in South Korea. Journals of Gerontology. Series B: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences, 80(11), Article gbaf136. 

Liu, L., & Zong, X. (2026). Empowering women entrepreneurs: The impact of the integrated medical insurance system in China. PLOS ONE. 

Mäki, M., Hägglund, A. E., Rotkirch, A., Kulathinal, S., & Myrskylä, M. (2025). Stable marital histories predict happiness and health across educational groups. European Journal of Population, 41(1), Article 12. 

Mathew V. Kiang, Zehang Richard Li, Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Rafeya V. Raquib, Dielle J. Lundberg, Eugenio Paglino, Benjamin Huynh, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Maria Glymour, and Andrew C. Stokes. (2026). “Applying machine learning to identify unrecognized COVID-19 deaths recorded as other causes of death in the United States.” Sci. Adv.12,eaef5697. (2026). DOI:

McEvoy, O., Layte, R. Social determinants of clusters of health behaviours: a longitudinal cohort study using latent- class analysis. BMC Public Health 26, 512 (2026).  

Metsä-Simola, N., Volotinen, L., & Martikainen, P. (2026). Physical illness and changes in spousal mental health: a register-based study on Finnish couples aged 30–70. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 80(3), 158-166. 

Oberndorfer M, Herbert A, Katikireddi SV, et al. Descriptive estimands, causal estimands, and avoiding the jungle of adjusted associations ‘in between’ J Epidemiol Community Health 2026;80:205-206. 

Oberndorfer, M., Luukkonen, J., Remes, H. et al. Parental socioeconomic composition of birth cohorts changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nat Commun 16, 11477 (2025). 

Paglino, Eugenio. (2026). The groupwise decomposition: Estimating group-specific contributions to differences between demographic measures." Demographic Research 54, 441-470.  

Pitkänen J, Sariaslan A, Bishop L, Aaltonen M, Mielityinen L, Laajasalo T, et al. Violent and sexual victimisation and incident anxiety, mood and substance use disorders in childhood and adolescence: a co-sibling study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 

Rao, Z., Hellstrand, J., & Myrskylä, M. (2025). Educational tracking and fertility. Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.  

Sipilä PN, Korhonen K, Lindbohm JV, Kivimäki M, Martikainen P (2026) The role of noninfectious comorbidities in the association between severe infections and risk of dementia in Finland: A nationwide registry study. PLoS Med 23(3): e1004688. 

Stonkute, D., Lorenti, A., Korhonen, K., Martikainen, P., & Myrskylä, M. (2025). Downstream of hearing loss: a population-based multistate analysis of lifetime risk and years lived with hearing loss, dementia and their comorbidity in Finland. Age and Ageing, 54(12), afaf361. 

Tarkiainen L, M Östergren O, Dei Bardi L, Martikainen P. Coevolution of education and income inequalities in mortality: is the double burden of basic education and low income becoming more lethal in Finland and Sweden over time? J Epidemiol Community Health Published Online First: 15 December 2025.

Väisänen, H., & Remes, H. (2025). Estimating Pregnancy Loss Trends: Important Work With Imperfect Data. Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology , 39(8), 642-644. 

Van Den Berg, H. F., Bartels, M., Sauce, B., Palviainen, T., Rose, R. J., Kaprio, J., Vuoksimaa, E., & Silventoinen, K. (2026). Association of Self-esteem with Mental Health and Personality: The Contribution of Genetic and Environmental Factors. Behavior Genetics, 56(1), 29-38. Article PMID 251711. 

Wang, M., Svedberg, P., Silventoinen, K. T., Böckerman, P., Narusyte, J., & Ropponen, A. (2025). The role of health behaviours, genetic factors, and early life environment in the associations between family-related events and sustainable working life. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, Article 14034948251398693. 

Ylinen, M., Einiö, E., Aaltonen, M., & Näsi, M. (2026). Sosioekonomisten tekijöiden yhteys väkivalta-ja omaisuusrikoksen uhriksi joutumiseen ja näistä rikoksista poliisille ilmoittamiseen. Kriminologia, 7(1), 60-79.  

Zai X, Li P, Dei Bardi L, Korhonen K, Moretti M, Myrskylä M, et al. Disparities in cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, treatment and mortality across socioeconomic groups in Finland: a register-based population study. BMJ Public Health. 2025.   

Zazueta-Borboa, J.-D., Basellini, U., Zagheni, E., Van Wissen, L., Martikainen, P., & Janssen, F. (2025). The Contribution of Educational Expansion to Trends in Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation in England and Wales, Finland, and Italy (Turin). Demography, 62(5), 1689-1715. 

Zong X, Silventoinen K, Martikainen P, Nelimarkka M. Childhood living conditions as predictors of self-rated health status in middle-aged and older adults: Evidence from a machine learning analysis in 27 high-income countries. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2025 Oct 15:2025.10.13.25337918. 

Zong X, Silventoinen K. The associations between childhood vaccine history and COVID-19 vaccine uptake among older adults in 28 high-income countries. Res Sq [Preprint]. 2025 Nov 20:rs.3.rs-5496025. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5496025/v1. 

Zong X, Wang H, Xiao G, Zhang Y. Hearing loss and cognitive function among older adults in 18 high-income countries: Moderating and Mediating factors. Res Sq [Preprint]. 2025 Oct 27:rs.3.rs-7371554. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7371554/v1. 

Zong, X. (2025). The Long Arm of Childhood: The Association Between Early-Life Indoor Air Pollution Exposure and Cognitive Performance in Later Life. Social Science & Medicine. 

Zong, X., Martikainen, P., Wang, Y., Liu, L., & Silventoinen, K. (2025). Machine Learning to Investigate Life-Course Social Determinants of Loneliness among Older Adults in the US, England, Israel, and 27 European Countries during the Pandemic. medRxiv, 2025-10.       

Zong, X., Nelimarkka, M., Martikainen, P., & Silventoinen, K. (2025). Predicting Later-Life Self-Rated Health from Childhood Living Conditions Using Machine Learning Approach. Res Sq [Preprint]. 

Policy briefs

Hellstrand, J. & Jalovaara, M. (2026)  Flux Policy brief 02/2026.