Bertina Kreshpaj

Bertina Kreshpaj

Postdoc

Member of:

    I am currently a Postdoc researcher in the Complexity and Big Data research group at the Section of Epidemiology, and I am also affiliated to the new World of Work research group at the Occupational Medicine Unit at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, where I completed my PhD.

    To successfully tackle social and health inequalities, I strongly believe we need increased collaboration across different scientific fields. For this reason my research interest mainly lies at the intersection of Occupational and Social Epidemiology, but also Migration Health, Economics, Health Policy, Labour Market studies, Sociology, etc. Also, I have a particular interest in adopting a life-course approach and advanced statistical methods to investigate many of these Public Health challenges, to better understand and disentangle life course mechanisms that may affect health.

    Current research

    Most of my work revolves around social determinants of health and health inequalities, with a focus on how employment quality as well as the digitalization of the labour market result in health inequalities across the life span, especially among existing vulnerable groups in the labor market. The main research projects where I am working are:

    1. Employment quality and cancer outcomes in Denmark

    I am Principal Investigator of the research project “Cancer inequalities in Denmark: do workers in non-standard employment have worse cancer outcomes compared to workers in standard employment?”, funded by the Danish Cancer Society (Kræftens Bekæmpelse) for the years 2023-2026. This project has enormous potential to improve understanding of new mechanisms that may drive incidence and cancer survival inequalities, target the most affected population groups and ultimately reduce health inequalities in society. The research group is multidisciplinary and it involves researchers from Copenhagen University, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain and the National Institute of Occupational Health in Norway.

    2. Labor market outcomes, mental health problems and childhood disadvantages in Denmark

    This project is investigating life course trajectories of disadvantages experienced in childhood and the risk of experiencing labor market marginalization in (early and later) adulthood as well as the risk of being a high-user in the Danish welfare system. This project is funded by the Rockwool Foundation for the years 2022-2025, is led by Naja Hulvej Rød as co-PI and is a collaboration between researchers at Copenhagen University and the Rockwool Foundation.

    3. The health effects of Precarious Employment

    This area of research is based on the programme grant “Effects on non-standard work arrangements on health, work and families – solutions for the future in Sweden”. The main aim of this project is to deepen the understanding of how non-standard work arrangements affect individuals, families and communities and how these contribute to inequalities in work environment, health and well-being using advanced quantitative, qualitative and policy analysis. This project is led by Theo Bodin (PI) at Karolinska Institutet and is funded by FORTE (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare) for the years 2019-2025 and it involves a consortium of researchers working on Precarious Employment in Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Chile, USA and Canada.

    4. Digitalisation of the labour market: digital labour platforms and its effects on health and occupational safety

    The GIG-HEALTH project -Digital labour platforms and its effects on health and well-being: a mixed-method project of gig workers in Sweden- investigates associations and mechanisms through which different types of platform work affect health and well-being and proposes recommendations for improving platform workers job conditions, health and well-being. The project is led by Nuria Matilla-Santander (PI) at Karolinska Institutet and is funded by FORTE for the years 2022-2024. The research group is multidisciplinary and led by Karolinska Institutet in collaboration with Oxford University (UK), Johns Hopkins University and City University of New York (US), University of Alcalá (ES), Toronto University (CA).

    The GIG-OSH project -New challenges for occupational safety and health in times of the digital transformation in Europe: the role of digital labour platforms- investigates the occupational safety and health risks and regulations of platform work and provides recommendations to foster a safe and healthy occupational environment for platform workers in European countries. Nuria Matilla-Santander and Theo Bodin at Karolinska Institutet are co-PIs of this European Project funded by the EU for the years 2022-2025. The consortium includes researchers from 6 European countries University of Copenhagen, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Warwick, University of Lodz, Tampere University and Pompeu Fabra University.

     

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