Two new dissertations

During the past year, another two doctoral students within the SIA project have finished their theses.

Else Foverskov successfully defended her doctoral thesis “Social Inequality in Cognitive Ageing” supervised by Rikke Lund. Her thesis focused on how socioeconomic conditions are associated with later life level and change in cognitive ability through a life course perspective, primarily examining the role of early life cognitive ability.

Harpa Sif Eyjólfsdóttir also successfully defended her doctoral thesis “Unequal tracks? Studies on work, retirement and health” supervised by Carin Lennartsson. Harpa investigated how health and socioeconomic status influence age of retirement, and in turn, if and how prolonged working life can affect health in later life for different socioeconomic groups. Link to interview with Harpa.

Else’s and Harpa’s studies contribute to the SIA project’s aim of elucidating how social inequalities in important life course processes and transitions influence health and functioning at late midlife and in older ages.

“The fact that the SIA programme has made these two eminent theses possible, as well as quite many earlier, is in my mind the main achievement of the programme and a key aspect for capacity building within social ageing research”, says PI Johan Fritzell.

In an appeal to the Nordic Public Health Agencies several distinguished researchers, all involved in the SIA project, have noted that older adults were systematically ignored in a recent report on monitoring social determinants of health and health inequalities. Read the full appeal here.

The second SIA workshop for junior researchers was organized at the Aging Research Center in Stockholm, September 3-4, 2019. Eleven doctoral students and postdocs from three Nordic countries participated. The aim of the workshop was to give junior researchers within the SIA-project the possibility to get to know each other as well as presenting, receiving and giving feedback to each other’s work. There was a wide range of interesting papers being presented on topics such as the impact of integrated care on the utilization of emergency care among older people; mortality among Finnish-born migrants in Sweden; the interplay between intelligence and education on the risk of dementia; and, the consequences of structural changes in a disadvantaged housing area in Denmark.

Johan Fritzell started the workshop with a presentation of the SIA-project and then senior researcher Marijke Veenstra from NOVA, OSLO, gave a talk about formal and informal care challenges in a Nordic welfare state. The rest of the first day consisted of six paper presentations with following discussions. Day two started with a talk by Professor Marja Aartsen from Nova, OSLO, about early childhood and later life social network influences on trajectories of cognitive functioning and physical health. Then followed presentations and discussions of four papers and the day ended with a lecture by Marja Aartsen, editor of the European Journal of Ageing, concerning what to think about when submitting and reviewing a paper. The workshop finally closed with a feedback discussion and ideas about future collaborations.

When evaluating the workshop, the following question was asked to the participants; What was the most positive aspect with the workshop summarized in one word? The answers can be found in this word cloud.

The second SIA workshop for junior researchers will be organized, September 3-4 in Stockholm, at the Aging Research Center. The workshop welcomes doctoral students and early postdocs interested in research topics related to ageing, health, care and welfare.

March
University of Helsinki is organising a conference Towards resilient Nordic welfare states, 14-15 March, 2019. The conference includes SIA presentations on ageing in place policy in Swedish eldercare by Petra Ulmanen and a presentation on our three-city study by Sara Erlandsson, Helene Brodin, Lea Graff and Olli Karsio. For more information: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/towards-resilient-nordic-welfare-states

May
The Department of Social Work at Stockholm University will arrange a free of charge workshop titled Marketization and inequalities in health and social care for older adults ageing in place in May 14-15, 2019. Two of the keynote speakers are Marta Szebehely and Bo Burström, both part of the SIA project. PhD students are invited to present papers and those accepted will be offered free accommodation and financial travel support. For more information please contact helene.brodin@socarb.su.se.

IAGG-ER (International Association of Gerontolotgy and Geriatrics European Region Congress) will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden in May 23-25, 2019. SIA will be represented by researchers participating in several symposiums. One SIA symposium is titled: Income levels, trends and changes and its impact on health in later life – a Nordic perspectiv. Chaired by Marijke Veenstra and co-chaired by Johan Fritzell. Presenters: Stefan Fors, Else Foverskov, Gitte Lindved Petersen, Marijke Veenstra and Johan Fritzell. Another SIA related symposium is chaired by Linda Enroth titled Gender and Social Inequalities in Disability-Free Life Expectancy in Later Life including presentations by SIA members Linda Enroth and Stefan Fors.
For more information: https://iagger2019.se/

June
Tranforming Care 2019 Conference will be held in Copenhagen 24-26 June. Many SIA related presentations are included in the program. One example is a symposium titled Implementing reablement in home care, convened by Tine Rostgaard and others. Tine is also the organizer for the whole conference. Marta Szebehely is convener, together with Ricardo Rodrigues, for a thematic panel on Transforming care work with presentation by several SIA members. Helene Brodin and Sara Erlandsson are conveners for a thematic panel on Managing care priorities in practice.

September
ESPANET (European Network for Social Policy Analysis) will organize their next conference in Stockholm in September 5-7, 2019. The overall theme of the conference is Social Citizenship, Migration and Conflict. One stream in the conference is titled Social inequalities in ageing, chaired by Carin Lennartsson and co-chaired by Johan Fritzell. Deadline for abstract submission is March 31, 2019. For more information: https://espanet2019.se/cfp/

During the two days senior researchers from the SIA project evalutated the progress of the project and discussed upcoming research collaborations and strategies for reaching stakeholders and end-users during the second half of the project, 2019-2020.

The program included presentations from two invited speakers: Kjetil van der Wel, from OsloMet presented the work from the Nordic register research: Experiences from the C-LIFE infrastructure project and Fredric Halvorsen from the Communication Office at OsloMet, who talked about why and how research findings could be presented using a format of film.

The two presentations and reports from our own research on social inequalties in ageing contributed to stimulating scientific discussions and a varity of dissimination ideas.

We thank our two hostesses Marijke Venstraa and Marja Aartsen for organising the meeting and the nice dinner.

Upcoming scientific meeting in Oslo, Oct 25-26, 2018

During two days, researchers from the four work packages will meet in Oslo to evaluate the progress of the project so far, and discuss upcoming research collaborations and strategies for reaching stakeholders and end-users during the second half of the project period.

Nordic Congress of Gerontology

During May 2-4, many SIA researchers travelled to Oslo to participate in the 24th Nordic Congress of Gerontology. Several symposia and many presentations were held by SIA researchers. It was also a nice opportunity for meeting up and continuing our ongoing collaborations within SIA.

Mid-term conference for the project “Social Inequalities in Ageing”

Almost halfway through the Social Inequalities in Ageing programme, a conference was held to mark this mid-point. The “SIA mid-term conference” took place in Stockholm, on February 15-17, 2018. The objective was to strengthen the Nordic research on inequalities in life course influences on health, health trends among the oldest old, health care utilization, and reforms within long-term care. Both distinguished and upcoming researchers participated in the conference, presenting work they had done within the SIA-programme or on subjects relevant to the project. Hildegard Theobald from Universität Vechta, Germany, and Mauricio Avendano from King’s College, London, UK, were invited as keynote speakers.

– The conference was, in my opinion, a great success. It is of utmost importance to have mid-size conferences of this type in which leading researchers and junior researchers meet and discuss crucial aspects of social inequalities of ageing, says Johan Fritzell, PI of the SIA-programme.

During three days, researchers from all the Nordic countries will meet to present and discuss recent findings regarding social inequalities in aging. The full program can be found here.

The European Public Health Conference takes place in Stockholm during November 1-4. On Saturday November 4th, the SIA project has arranged a workshop entitled Social Inequalities in Ageing, arranged by Johan Fritzell and Neda Agahi, with the following presentations:

The ageing populations in the Nordic countries: mortality and longevity from 1990-2014
Terese Sara Høj Jørgensen – Denmark

Socioeconomic Position Across the Life-Course and Cognitive Ability in Midlife
Rikke Lund – Denmark

Change and Stability: Trends in Health and Function Among the Oldest Old in Finland and Sweden
Stefan Fors – Sweden

Nordic eldercare – weak universalism becoming weaker?
Marta Szebehely – Sweden

Market oriented health care reforms and equity in access in health care in the Nordic countries – impact on the ageing population
Ilmo Keskimäki – Finland

The abstracts can be found here: https://ephconference.eu/documents/stockholm_2017/8.K.pdf