University of Oulu
Oulun yliopisto (University of Oulu) is one of Finland’s largest and most multidisciplinary universities, recognized internationally for its strong focus on lifelong health and well-being. Founded in 1958, the university is a global leader in birth cohort research, including the renowned Northern Finland Birth Cohorts of 1966 and 1986, as well as cohorts focused on preterm birth and large-scale register-linkage studies.
Within IMPROVE PRETERM, the University of Oulu leads research on perinatal and neonatal interventions, including the work packages dedicated to antenatal and postnatal corticosteroid use and Nordic register studies. The team brings deep expertise in pediatrics, genetics, and lifecourse epidemiology and contributes to multiple research use cases as well as the development of the IMPROVE PRETERM data platform.
Johanna Metsälä
Senior researcher with PhD in epidemiology and experience in register-based research. My research interests focus on lifelong consequences of preterm birth using nationwide, administrative health and social registers in the Nordic countries.
Laura Jussinniemi
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oulu, Finland, and local coordinator of the IMPROVE PRETERM project. I hold a PhD (Medicine) and a Master of Health Sciences, with a background in studying cardiometabolic and pulmonary outcomes in adults born preterm entering middle age.
In this project, my research focuses on understanding the long-term health effects of early-life exposures, particularly antenatal corticosteroids, using large Nordic register-based data.