I obtained my PhD in public health / social medicine in October 2005 at Uppsala University. The topic of my thesis was stress management and health promotion on a healthy (working) population and a population suffering from long-term pain. You can dowload my thesis by clicking here.

I'm an Associate Professor in Public Health (obtained at Karolinska Institutet) and have been an affiliated scientist at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University. Today I'm a scientist at Karolinska Institutet and a Research Collaborator at the Mayo Clinic. My research profile is quite broad and ranges from advanced biology/physiology to psychology, psychometrics and integrative medicine (practical and theoretical). Today I primarily have the following focus areas in my research activities:

  • Web-based intervention (stress management, health promotion and systematic improvement of the work environment on the individual, group and organizational level).
  • Web-based data collection/ (work environment) surveys, questionnaire development and psychometric analysis.
  • Civility and incivility at work.
  • Stress and hearing problems.
  • Biological and psychological markers of stress and health/ill health.
  • Self-rated health and sleep quality; two measures that have proven to be important predictors of future health, wellbeing, morbidity and mortality.
  • Humor in relation to stress and health/ill health.
  • Stress and pain.

My foundation is in alternative and complementary medicine with educations in acupuncture, massage and hypnosis and registered nurse. One part om my research is to assess possible effects of complementary medical methods such as massage and mental relaxation on long-term muscle pain. In my doctoral work, I developed a web-based self-help tool for stress management and health promotion that yielded (at least short term) beneficial effects on indicators of both psychological and biological health and wellbeing as well as stress management ability.

List of Publications