My background is in health economics. This field of science researches, for instance, how the economical phenomena affect the additional health gains that our social and health care system is able to produce. These economical phenomena include, e.g., the dynamic behavior of health markets and the organization and pricing of health services.
I currently work as a Senior Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. My research currently focuses on the costs of dementia and cognitive impairment both in Finland and in Europe. I strive to find factors affecting the prevalence and costs of dementia, and predict the future workforce needs related to memory disorders. My research is linked to several societal discourses at hand: for example, our way of organizing care for older people not only affects materially the lifes of the persons receiving care, but also those of informal family caregivers such as spouses and family members.
I hold a title of docent in the field of health economics, especially register-based effectiveness research. My background is in industrial engineering, and I graduated as a D.Sc. (Tech). from Aalto University. My research mostly includes using extensive individual-level registry data sets, spanning up to hundreds of thousands of patients. In addition of dementia and cognitive impairment, my research topics have included pharmaceutical care of atrial fibrillation patients, and service production system for dental care.