Tiina Laatikainen

Professor Laatikainen, MD, PhD, is a Director of the Public Health and Welfare Department in the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and a Professor of Health Promotion in the Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition in the Medical Faculty of the University of Eastern Finland.

Professor Laatikainen’s research and expert functions, in which she has been involved over 30 years, have concerned widely epidemiology and prevention of main public health problems such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, memory disorders, asthma and allergy. She has coordinated several large population-based surveys nationally and internationally and has been closely involved in the national and international working groups developing methodology for health monitoring. She has also long-term expertise in developing and conducting evidence-based lifestyle interventions and lately she has carried out research on quality of care in primary health care. She has over 380 peer reviewed research papers.

Professor Laatikainen has, internationally and domestically, served in number of scientific, expert and public health functions, WHO's activities and multinational projects. She has coordinated the work of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, Health Promotion and Monitoring in Finland since 2002 and been a head since 2017.