Nordic Public Health Conference
Invited Speakers
Moderator, host and graphic recorder
Kattis Ahlström
Conference Moderator for NPHC2025
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Learn more about Kattis
Kattis Ahlström is one of Sweden’s leading TV personalities and a highly experienced and sought-after moderator. With her calm and engaging presence, she has skillfully led discussions and debates at the highest level, always focused on creating an inclusive and engaging dialogue.
As a television host, Kattis has been the face of many of Sweden’s most prominent TV shows. She was awarded the Kristallen prize for Best Female Host. Her extensive experience in leading both small and large events makes her an obvious choice as a moderator for everything from business conferences to major galas.
Kattis has also been heard on popular radio programs as well as in podcasts. With her wide-ranging knowledge, warm humor, and genuine commitment, Kattis is a moderating talent who always creates a positive and inspiring atmosphere.
Her ability to connect diverse perspectives and make people feel heard makes her the top choice for moderating discussions, debates, and conferences at both national and international levels.
Olivia Wigzell
Director General for the Public Health agency of Sweden and host of NPHC2025
Learn more about Olivia
Olivia Wigzell was appointed Director-General of the Public Health Agency of Sweden in 2024. Previously, between 2015 and 2024, she served as Director-General of the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen). Before that, she was Director-General of SBU, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services.
Her previous roles and assignments include serving as Deputy Director-General at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs as well as serving as a government- appointed investigator, acting as a county council commissioner in Stockholm County, chairing the OECD Health Committee, and being a member of Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO). She has a long experience of Nordic collaboration and has been a representative in the Nordic Committee of Senior officials for health and social affairs.
Louise Wester
Graphic Recorder for NPHC2025
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Learn more about Louise
“Be brave and keep it simple”, that is Louise’s motto.
With her two main tools – her fast pen and ability to listen carefully – she can simultaneously document what happens and is discussed during a meeting. It´s called graphic recording.
The last twenty years Louise has been working with leadership teams, specialists and organisations in the field of communication, change management and how to facilitate to reach engagement and clarity. One important tool has been the drawing pen. The ability to synthesise and clarify by drawing started during her biology studies and her years working as a researcher.
“To understand the complex one must first try to simplify. When you understand the highest level, you can then dive into the details”.
Plenary speakers
Jakob Forssmed
Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health at The Swedish Government
Learn more about Jakob
Jakob Forssmed is a Christian Democratic politician and he has been Sweden’s Minister for Social Affairs and Public Health since 2022. His areas of responsibility include public health, psychiatry, dental care, sport, civil society, health data and life science. With his background as a Member of Parliament and State Secretary, he has extensive experience of political work at national level.
As Minister for Social Affairs, he is working to create better conditions for good and equitable health for the entire population. Public health issues are central to his work, such as living conditions, psychiatry, communicable disease control and efforts in areas such as loneliness and digital media use among children and adolescents. He also pursues issues in life science and health data, with the aim of making Sweden a leading nation in research and innovation in relation to health.
In addition, he has a strong commitment to the role of sports in society and the importance of an active civil society. He views the task of politics as creating good conditions for different actors to work together so that people, based on their conditions, can live their lives in health and community.
Doctor Maria Neira
Director of Environment, climate change and health at The World Health Organization (WHO), Spain
Learn more about Maria
Dr Maria P. Neira is the Director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization. Prior to that she served as Under-Secretary of Health and President of the Spanish Food Safety Agency.
Dr Neira began her career as a medical coordinator working for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). She then spent several years working in different African countries during armed conflicts.
Dr Neira is a Medical Doctor by training, specialized in Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases in Paris, France, Master of Public Health and a University Diploma in Human Nutrition, Epidemic Preparedness and Crisis Management.
Among many distinctions, she has been awarded the Médaille de “L’Ordre National du Mérite” by the Government of France and received an “Extraordinary Woman” award by HM Queen Letizia of Spain. In early 2019, she was nominated among the top 100 policy influencers in health and climate change.
Taru Koivisto
Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland
Learn more about Taru
Taru Koivisto is Deputy Director General at Department for Communities and Functional Capacity, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland.
Her area of responsibilities covers promotion of health, wellbeing and functional capacity, disease prevention, rehabilitation, as well as services for older people and persons with disabilities.
She has long experience in state administration and public health and has been involved in a number of committees, conferences and advisory groups both nationally and internationally. She has served as the chairperson of the Council of Europe’s health committees and chaired the Standing Committee of the Regional Committee for WHO/EURO.
She has worked in the Ministry since 1998 and before that in other positions in national health administration since 1989.
Professor Naja Hulvej Rod
Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Copenhagen Health Complexity Center
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Learn more about Naja
Naja Hulvej Rod is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Copenhagen Health Complexity Center at the University of Copenhagen. The Copenhagen Health Complexity Center is a multi-disciplinary research hub dedicated to developing a systematic scientific approach for understanding and addressing complex public health problems.
Her expertise spans various domains including sleep, health inequality, young adult health, and early life adversity, with a focus on health complexity, causal inference, and life course mechanisms. She has a particular interest in complex systems theory and how it intersects with methodological insights from causal inference theory. She has extensive expertise in working with longitudinal datasets and register-based research.
Naja Hulvej Rod is PI of the Danish Life Course Cohort (DANLIFE) Study, which leverage multi-dimensional exposome data covering the totality of measured lifetime exposures across multiple social, environmental, and biological dimensions in 2 million people.
She has participated in numerous boards and committees across Europe, and she has been awarded several prestigious grants and awards including the Sapere Aude starting grant, the Elite Researcher Prize 2022, and an ERC consolidator grant.
Doctor Kira Fortune
PhD in Sociology and responsible for Healthy Cities, Health Promotion and Well-being in the Regional WHO Office of Europe
Learn more about Kira
Kira Fortune is responsible for Healthy Cities, Health Promotion and Well-being in the Regional WHO Office of Europe. Kira has spent the last 25 years specializing in public health, equity, community engagement and the social determinants of health in various international organizations across the globe.
Prior to taking up the position in Copenhagen, she managed the Social Determinants of Health and Violence and Injury Prevention Unit at the Regional WHO Office of the Western Pacific, in Manila. She also spent ten years at the Pan American Health Organization/Regional Office of the World Health Organization in Washington D.C., coordinating the work on the social determinants of health, healthy cities, health-in-all policies and the sustainable development goals within the Americas.
Kira has extensive experience working across the international stage from global NGOs, academia as well as with inter-governmental organizations. Before joining the World Health Organization, Kira managed The International Health Research Network in Denmark and spent four years working in the Department of Global Advocacy at The International Planned Parenthood Federation in London. Kira also worked for three years with UNICEF in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she was responsible for the Programme on Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV.
Kira holds a Doctorate in Sociology from City University London; a Master’s Degree in Anthropology, Gender and Development, and a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology from the University of London. She also has a Master’s Degree in International Health from University of Copenhagen.
Associate Professor Timo Ståhl
Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Chief Specialist at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
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Learn more about Timo
Chief Specialist Timo Ståhl is an expert in health promotion, particularly in “Health in All Policies” type of work. With 25 years of experience, he has worked on health promotion research, development, and implementation at local, national, EU, and global levels.
His research has focused on evaluating organizational capacity for health promotion in municipalities. Based on this work he led the creation of the “health promotion coefficient,” by which €100 million is allocated as state subsidies to support them. A similar mechanism is developed for wellbeing services counties responsible for organizing health and social services.
Recently, in 2018, he launched the PUHTI project, which gathers real-world data (RWD) from private companies and NGOs for municipal and wellbeing services counties planning. This data includes grocery sales, payment defaults, sports licenses, and social media data, including illegal drugs sales, compiled into a digital dashboard for decision-making support. Five biggest municipalities, including city of Helsinki and three wellbeing services counties participate the project.
Timo Ståhl has published over 150 scientific papers, non-reviewed research papers, development reports, and books.
Professor Knut Inge Klepp
Professor of Medicine (Public Health Nutrition) at the University of Oslo and Special Advisor at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Learn more about Knut Inge
Klepp is the Scientific Coordinator of “JA PreventNCD” at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and Professor, Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. He was previously Executive Director for Division of Mental and Physical Health, NIPH and before that Director General of Public Health at the Norwegian Directorate of Health.
He has served as Coordinator and WP-leader of several EU DG Research projects, and he is Past President of the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity.
Klepp has published more than 300 scientific journal articles, primarily related to adolescent health promotion, NCD prevention and evaluation of public health measures.
Professor Micael Dahlen
Professor of Economics, Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness at the Stockholm School of Economics
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Learn more about Micael
Micael Dahlen is a professor of Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness and Chair of the Center by the same name at the Stockholm School of Economics.
At the age of 34, he became Sweden’s youngest professor of economics, marking the start of a career dedicated to exploring what constitutes a good life. His research focuses on how truly good economics—where the actions and exchanges between individuals, organizations, and society create extended and synergetic effects—can contribute to well-being for all.
As part of his commitment to education and research, Micael has pioneered the world’s first mandatory university courses in Wellbeing, Welfare, and Happiness, ensuring that these vital topics are integrated into higher education. Beyond academia, he is a sought-after international keynote speaker, sharing insights on happiness, creativity, and the science behind a fulfilling life.
As the host of The Happy Science Podcast, he brings together experts and ideas to explore the science of well-being in an engaging and thought-provoking way.
Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead
Emeritus Professor of Public Health and the Public Health University of Liverpool
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Learn more about Dame Margaret
Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead held the W.H. Duncan Chair of Public Health at the University of Liverpool, UK, from 1999 to 2023, where she was also founding Head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Policy Research on the Determinants of Health Equity.
Her passionate interest over the past thirty years or more has been social inequalities in health and in healthcare. Her work with WHO has helped provide guidance for countries across Europe on making population health policies and strategies more equitable. In 2016, she was knighted for her contribution to public health in the Queen’s New Year Honours List (becoming a Dame).
Throughout her academic career, Margaret has enjoyed many fruitful collaborations with Nordic researchers. She has worked with Professor Göran Dahlgren and colleagues since 1990 on WHO and Rockefeller Foundation programmes. She was awarded her PhD in 1997 from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm under the supervision of Professor Finn Diderichsen, and has collaborated with him and many colleagues including Professor Bo Burström, KI, ever since.
As well as contributing to various UK and international efforts to address social inequalities in health, she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Health Equity for the North of England (the Due North Report). She was Chair of the Independent Review of Equity in Medical Devices, set up by the UK Secretary of State for Health, to investigate ethnic and other unfair biases in medical devices used in the NHS and to make recommendations for improvements, the report of which was published in March 2024.
NPHC 2025 CONFERENCE HOST
CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT
Meetx is the conference bureau handling the conference secretariat for NPHC 2025.
E-mail: nphc2025@meetx.se
