Josefin WÃ¥ngdahl
About me
I am Associate Professor in Public Health. My main area of interest is health literacy from a public health perspective. I have mainly carried out research that focused on health literacy and health promotion work linked to newly arrived migrants with a refugee background. What drives me is to produce and spread knowledge about how to reduce inequality in health and healthcare.
Part-time I am doing research in Carin Lennartsson's group in the Social Gerontology Sector at the Aging Research Center (ARC), ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ & Stockholm University on health literacy among older adults in the Forte financed project "Health literacy among older adults: Exploring older people´s prerequisites for understanding health information and making informed health choices" together with Janne Agerholm and others. We partly use data from the Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD). I also work with Lena Dahlberg and others, within the FORTE-funded program "Aging, loneliness and mental health: understanding the connections and enabling change" (REALM), in which I lead working package 3. Based on interviews with care staff and previous research we will develop and pilot test a training program for care professionals on loneliness and mental health. In addition, I am involved in a project in the Västra Götaland region that aims to improve the capacity of health and dental professionals to promote and take into account health literacy in their work. So far, a page on health literacy has been published on and in 2025 an online training on health literacy will be developed. Part-time I am teaching at the Division of Nursing, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, Sweden. I mainly teach about Health Literacy, Public Health, Health Promotion and Research Methods.
I am Sweden’s research representative in the Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational Health Literacy of WHO Europe () in which I am involved in the working group on mental health literacy and the M-POHLs project on organisational health literacy in primary care. In year 2024 we will translate M-POHLs instrument for assessing organisational health literacy in primacy care to Swedish and pilot test it a Swedish context. Further, I am co-founder of and I do also often have external assignments regarding health literacy as an expert, trainer and lecturer outside ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡.
Previously I have project lead and evaluated several EU funded research projects that focused on health-promoting activities for migrants
with refugee backgrounds. For example the project MILSA educational platform for civic- and health communicators and MILSA psychosocialhealth project, and the Erasmus+ project Health4Health Literacy in which a competence profile, an xMOOC course and a handbook have been developed. The material is targeting people who want to improve their own or others knowledge on health literacy and dementia and how to work with health literacy to improve communication with older peopled with dementia and their relatives. I have also worked with translations of several health literacy instruments into Swedish and several languages that many migrants in Sweden speak, and studied how valid they are in a Swedish context. At the moment I am working with translation and validation of HLS19-Q12 aiming to measure health literacy on individual level and the OHL-PHC tool which aims to assess health literacy on organisational level within the primary care. Information about health literacy instruments in Swedish can be found on the Swedish webpage on Health Literacy.
Research
Public health, health promotion, health literacy, health communication, migration, health inequalities, pedagogy, research methodology.
Articles
- Article: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF CARING SCIENCES. 2024;38(4):876-887
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;34:ckae144.378
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;34:ckae144.943
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;34:ckae144.2048
- Article: PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING. 2024;125:108291
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2024;24(1):1455
- Article: QUALITY OF LIFE RESEARCH. 2024;33(4):1003-1014
- Article: HEALTH PROMOTION INTERNATIONAL. 2024;39(2):daae015
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2023;33:ckad160.253
- Article: BMC HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH. 2023;23(1):842
- Article: JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC HEALTH CARE. 2023;37(4):391-401
- Article: BMC HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH. 2023;23(1):510
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2023;23(1):724
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2023;23(1):304
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;22(1):2278
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32(Supplement_3):ckac131.313
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32(Supplement_3):ckac130.141
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32(Supplement_3):ckac131.331
- Article: HEALTH COMMUNICATION. 2022;37(12):1510-1519
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;22(1):293
- Article: PLOS ONE. 2022;17(12):e0279397
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;21(1):2165
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;31(Supplement_3):ckab164.701
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;31(Supplement_3):ckab164.698
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;21(1):1606
- Article: JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH. 2021;23(3):e24466
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2020;20(1):1044
- Article: JMIR MHEALTH AND UHEALTH. 2020;8(2):e16316
- Article: BMC HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH. 2019;19(1):676
- Article: BMJ OPEN. 2019;9(9):e029668
- Article: ACTA ONCOLOGICA. 2018;57(6):743-749
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2018;28(suppl_1):cky048.075
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2018;28(suppl_1):cky048.074
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2018;28(suppl_1):cky048.073
- Article: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2018;63(3):409-419
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2017;27(suppl_3):ckx189.262
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2017;27(suppl_3):ckx186.217
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2015;15:1162
- Journal article: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF CARING SCIENCES. 2015;29(1):165-172
- Article: BMC PUBLIC HEALTH. 2014;14:1030
- Journal article: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2014;24(suppl_2):cku162-cku017
- Journal article: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2014;42(1):25-31
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All other publications
- Book chapter: COMMUNICATION RESEARCH ON HEALTH DISPARITIES AND COPING STRATEGIES IN COVID-19 RELATED CRISES. 2023;p. 56-65
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2023
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2022
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2022
- Conference publication: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2022;32:III545
- Conference publication: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH. 2021;31:ckab164.700
- Preprint: JMIR PREPRINTS. 2020
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2020
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2020
- Preprint: RESEARCH SQUARE. 2020
- Preprint: JMIR PREPRINTS. 2019
- Book chapter: INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF HEALTH LITERACY. 2019;p. 199-214
- Book chapter: INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF HEALTH LITERACY. 2019;p. 199-214
- Book chapter: INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF HEALTH LITERACY. 2019;p. 199-214
Grants
- Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare1 July 2023 - 30 June 2029
- Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare1 January 2023 - 31 December 2025
Employments
- Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, 2022-2026
Degrees and Education
- Docent, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, 2025
- PhD, Social medicine, Health literacy among newly arrived refugees in Sweden and implications for health and healthcare., Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, 2018
- Degree Of Master Of Medical Science 120 Credits, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, 2011